Bachelet

In late 2004, following a surge of her popularity in opinion polls, Bachelet was established as the only CPD figure able to defeat Lavín, and she was asked to become the Socialists' candidate for the presidency.[19] She was at first hesitant to accept the nomination as it was never one of her goals, but finally agreed because she felt she could not disappoint her supporters.[20] On October 1 of that year she was freed from her government post in order to begin her campaign and to help the CPD at the municipal elections held later that month. On January 28, 2005 she was named the Socialist Party's candidate for president.

At the December 2005 election, Bachelet faced the center-right candidate Sebastián Piñera (RN), the right-wing candidate Joaquín Lavín(UDI) and the leftist candidate Tomás Hirsch (JPM). In the runoff election on January 15, 2006, Bachelet faced Piñera, and won the presidency with 53.5% of the vote, thus becoming her country's first female elected president and the first woman who was not the wife of a previous head of state or political leader to reach the presidency of a Latin American nation in a direct election.[21]

On January 30, 2006, after being declared President-elect by the Elections Qualifying Court (Tricel), Bachelet announced her cabinet of ministers, which was unprecedentedly composed of an equal number of men and women, as was promised during her campaign. In keeping with the coalition's internal balance of power she named seven ministers from the Christian Democrat Party (PDC), five from the Party for Democracy (PPD), four from the Socialist Party (PS), one from the Social Democrat Radical Party (PRSD) and three without party affiliation. In the days that followed, she named the group of deputy ministers and regional intendants, following the same rule of "gender parity."

Bachelet was sworn in as President of the Republic of Chile on March 11, 2006 in a ceremony held in a plenary session of the National Congress in Valparaíso...