Interesting turn of political events

Maybe those of you have been following the political news from Chile heard about the right wing presidential candidate, Pablo Longueira, stepping down from the race due to being diagnosed with depression.  Chile had been working a long to to agree on policies for primary elections, and had finally put them together for the first time with a surprisingly good turnout.  The two right wing parties agreed to support each other no matter which of their candidates came out first, and Longueira, from the far right, won.  On the left, Michelle Bachelet not only had the highest number of votes by far, but also the highest turn out of voters.

With the election coming in November, the right ended up with no candidate at all as their coalition fell apart with Longueira's resignation.  The right has more or less agreed on a new candidate.   The new candidate, running against Michelle Bachelet, is also a woman, Evelyn Matthei.

So Chile may just have two women as the main contenders for the presidency, interesting for a country that is still very conservative in many ways.  But the comparisons go even further. Both women are the daughters of Air Force Generals - they knew each other as children.  Bachelet's father was a military attache in Washington DC at the Chilean embassy so she speaks excellent English, while Matthei`s father served in the Chilean embassy in London where she also learned English. Bachelet´s father was on the "wrong" side of the coup and died in the air force  institution where Matthei's father was the director.  Bachelet`s family contends that the former General Alberto Bachelet was murdered.  General Matthei always insisted he knew nothing about the internal operations of that institution and that he was only a figurehead .  General Matthei was the Minister of health for the military junta under Pinochet, and Michelle Bachelet, a pediatrician and epidemiologist with studies in military strategy served as Health Minister and Defense Minister under President Ricardo Lagos after democracy was restored in Chile.  

Bachelet is a separated mother of three who raised her children alone while  Evelyn Matthei is a still married mother of three. 

General Matthei was the first Junta member to publicly admit that the military regime had lost the October 1988 referendum to elect General Pinochet for a new eight year term.  Michelle Bachelet and her mother were held in a concentration camp and finally had to flee the country living first in Australia and then Germany before finally returning home after Pinochet was defeated. 

It promises to be an interesting election with the dynamics of two women who seem to have lived parallel lives with so many points of comparison and yet with personal stories shaped by their father's decisions and loyalties.  Mirror lives,  one on the left and the other on the right, that have lead to vastly different political positions and personal convictions, and public interpretations of the modern history of Chile.