Michelle Bachelet: Hardworking President

  I chose her because she proves that you don’t need a male by your side to succeed 

        -Eden Burnett

    Michelle Bachelet was born on September 29, 1951. In 1974 after her father died of a heart attack, 

Bachelet who was a medical student at the University of Chile at the time was arrested (along with her

mother) and sent to a secret prison, where she also was tortured. Released into exile in 1975, Bachelet

lived in Australia before moving to East Germany, where she became active in socialist politics and

studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1979 she returned to Chile and subsequently completed

her medical degree. She was the first female president of Chile and the first popularly elected South

American female president whose political career was established independently of her husband. She was

elected in 2006 and served a 4-year term and was then re-elected in 2014 for another 4-year term.