Santiago: Chile elected socialist Michelle Bachelet to be its first woman president on Sunday, making her only the second woman elected to head a South American state as Latin America cements a shift to the left.

With almost all votes counted, Bachelet, from Chile's ruling centre-left coalition, won 53 per cent of ballots cast while opposition candidate Sebastian Pinera took 47 per cent, the government Electoral Service said.

Bachelet, 54, a medical doctor imprisoned and tortured during the 1973-1990 Augusto Pinochet dictatorship before living in exile abroad, will be the fourth consecutive president from the centre-left alliance that has run Chile since 1990.

"Violence came into my life, destroying what I loved, because I was a victim of hate," Bachelet told tens of thousands of confetti-tossing supporters along the main boulevard in downtown Santiago.

"I have dedicated my life to reversing that hate and converting it into understanding, tolerance and, why not say it, love."

A former defence minister, Bachelet is only the second woman elected to head a South American nation after Janet Jagan of Guyana was chosen to succeed her husband as president in 1997 after he died.

"I feel emotional, happy. We are breathing the air of liberty and unity," said Ana Paredes, 37, a hotel employee who said she spontaneously decided to join Bachelet revellers.

The celebration extended well into the night with jubilant supporters honking their car horns and shaking giant flags.

Bachelet, an agnostic with three children from two relationships, benefitted from a shift to more secular values in Chile, which until recently had a reputation as one of the region's most socially conservative countries.

She pledged during her victory speech to bring more social equality to Chile by the time her four-year term ends in 2010, with social security and equal educational opportunities for all. "I want my government to be remembered as a government for everybody," she said.

Challenges

Political scientist Ricardo Israel said a main challenge for her will be to bring more women into public office, and to find a place for her social-democratic coalition within the range of leftist governments taking hold in Latin America.

Israel said she would have to balance the need to maintain good global relations, particularly with the United States so Chile can keep benefitting from global free trade, while guaranteeing a steady natural gas supply from its neighbours.

A Bachelet victory consolidates a shift to the left in Latin America, where leftists now run Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela, some with politics more extreme than others. Socialist Evo Morales will soon take office in gas-rich Bolivia, and a leftist candidate is favoured to win Mexico's July presidential election.

"I think she will have to make one decision very soon, which is whether or not to attend the inauguration of Evo Morales, which is on January 22," Israel said, referring to traditional tensions between the two neighbours.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in a weekly broadcast on Sunday, called himself a "good friend" of Bachelet's.

Bachelet is expected to be a pragmatic leftist, following in the footsteps of popular outgoing President Ricardo Lagos, whose fiscal discipline won over many right-leaning sceptics.

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