Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (born September 29, 1951) is a Chilean Socialist politician who served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2014 to 2018, the first woman to be elected president of her country. She first won the presidency in a runoff election in 2006, facing center-right billionaire businessman and former senator Sebastián Piñera, obtaining 53.5% of the vote. She campaigned on a platform of continuing Chile's free market policies, while increasing social benefits to help reduce the country's gap between rich and poor, one of the largest in the world. Her presidency will be inaugurated on March 11, 2006.