Santiago

As Chilean socialist Michelle Bachelet takes office as president on March 11, she'll be struggling to maintain a balance between change and continuity. In a country where the political and economic legacies of the Pinochet dictatorship still reverberate, and with continental politics shifting leftward, just how much she leans in one direction or another will be of considerable concern.

Bachelet, 54, won a runoff election on a platform emphasizing education, employment, equal opportunities, pension reform and creation of what she called a "broad social protection system." But it is the persona and personal history of Chile's first woman president that mark a radical departure from most of Chile's political class. Bachelet, an agnostic and a single mother of three, doesn't conform to the traditonal mold of this socially conservative country, although she in fact reflects Chile's real society, where 30 percent of households are run by women and more than half of all children are born out of wedlock.

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