Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet won nearly twice as many votes as her conservative rival in Sunday’s election.  But she didn’t quite get the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff election Bachelet is expected to easily win.

“We’re going to have a decisive and strong victory that backs up the transformation program that we have been building,” she said of the runoff election on 15 December.

Sunday’s ballot saw the moderate Socialist, doctor, and single mom Michelle Bachelet getting 47 percent of the vote; the current conservative ruling coalition’s candidate Evelyn Matthei got 25 percent; minor party candidates split the rest.

But runoff or not, it appears that Bachelet’s goal of changing the constitution, written by fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet’s goons, is in trouble.  The document includes byzantine election rules designed to frustrate change by preventing opposition parties from getting too many seats in Congress.  Pinochet’s rules also demand super-majorities to change the constitution, reform the electoral process, and to reform education.  With most of the votes counted, Bachelet's coalition had 51 percent in the Senate and 48 percent in the lower chamber.

“There all these demands in the streets for constitutional reform,” said Wake Forest University political science professor Peter Siavelis, referring to years of massive student protests demanding equal access to education, but he says, “There's not going to be a majority there.  So the influence of the dictatorship is going to impact on her reforms.”

Two of the leaders of those student protests will be part of Bachelet’s coalition.  Camila Vallejo and Giorgio Jackson both won their respective districts in Santiago.