Bachellet, Chile´s First Woman President
With the ballot count almost complete, Michelle Bachellet has clearly won the elections with 53,5 percent of the vote to become Chile's first woman president.

The center-left candidate and former health and defense minister of outgoing President Ricardo Lagos polled 3,631,448 ballots for 53,51 percent of the total vote, while conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera got 46,48 of the balloting, according to the Interior Ministry's second official report.

Trailing by 6 points, businessman Pinera conceded defeat and congratulated Bachellet, 54, for her victory.

Lagos called Bachellet's triumph a historic day for Chile and Latin America.

Her electoral showing was better than Lagos', who won the second round over Joaquin Lavin with 51,31 percent of the polling.

Thousands of people flooded into the streets waving flags, blowing whistles and chanting slogans, with many more honking their horns as they drive round the city of Santiago and other towns to celebrate her victory.

After wishing the victorious candidate success in her future role as president at a television address, Pinera said he wanted to "pay homage to all those millions and millions of women who with much strength and tenacity have finally achieved the place and the situation they deserve in our society".

Daughter of an Air Force official who was arrested, tortured by General Pinochet's cronies during the 1973 bloody coup and later die in prison, Bachellet also suffered detention together with her mother and had to live in exile for several years.

The former health and defense minister will become the fourth consecutive president from the centre-left coalition known as the Concertacion, which has governed Chile since the end of military rule in 1990.

A doctor and a single mother, Bachelet was seen initially as an unusual choice for the presidency in a country considered one of the most socially conservative in South America.

Political analysts have pointed out that her win consolidates a swing to the political left in Latin America.

The election is the fourth since Chile returned to democracy in 1990 after 17 years of military rule.

The second official report tells that 6,982,976 voters casted their ballots for a 97,52 percent turnout of the registered electorate.