PUERTO AISEN (Chile): The candidate faced the hard women of this rugged Patagonian town. They were angry about the fate of their sons and husbands, a dozen lost in recent years to drownings, suicides, street crime. The women feared a murderous conspiracy — and blamed the government for not doing enough to get to the bottom of it.

Michelle Bachelet, a product of the country’s political elite in the far-off capital, listened to their pleas in a cramped church office here. She took notes and vowed to look into it. She promised no solutions, but that didn’t matter to the widows and mothers.

“Finally, someone seems to care about us,” said Rosa Flores, leader of the mothers group. “I think she will help.”

As Chileans go to the polls to elect a new president, the scene that unfolded in this salmon-fishing outpost says much about the allure of Michelle Bachelet.

The blond paediatrician is the favourite to win what is expected to be the first round of the election.

But she might not seem like the obvious front-runner to lead this South American nation.

She is a woman on a continent where governments have long been dominated by men.

She is a mother of three, separated from her husband.

She is the daughter of an air force general loyal to left-wing President Salvador Allende, who was overthrown by Gen. Augusto Pinochet in 1973.

With Bachelet’s prospective ascension to the presidency, it seems easy enough to declare that Chilean politics has finally come full circle.

Meanwhile, outside the stately presidential palace that was bombed by Pinochet’s supporters on Sept. 11, 1973, a statue of Allende now greets passersby. “I have faith in Chile and its destiny,” reads the inscription, among Allende’s last words before his death on that convulsive day.

But many on the left assail Bachelet and the left-wing coalition she represents as sellouts, politicians who have proved to be just as fiscally conservative, and pro-Washington, as Pinochet.—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service