Chile's election: A tale of two daughters
Chile holds a presidential election on Sunday and both frontrunners are women - the socialist Michelle Bachelet and her right-wing rival Evelyn Matthei.
Advertisement
In a region where politics is still very much a man's game, that, in itself, is remarkable enough, but when one considers the relationship between the two women, it becomes more extraordinary still.
Ms Bachelet and Ms Matthei went to the same primary school and played together as kids.
Their fathers were close friends and served together in the Chilean air force until the military coup of 1973 tore them apart, with tragic consequences.
At times, the history of the two women and their fathers is like something out of a Latin American soap opera or a magical realist novel.
The region's great writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, say, or Isabel Allende, would struggle to invent such a plot.
Early ties
The story of Ms Bachelet and Ms Matthei starts in 1958 on a military base in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. Their fathers, both air force officers, were posted there with their young families.
They lived on the same street - one at number 4 and the other across the road at number 13. Michelle Bachelet was seven years old and Evelyn Matthei five.
Other Trending Stories
"To this day, Ms Bachelet's mother remembers how the two girls would play in the streets and go out on their bikes," says Rocio Montes, co-author of Daughters of Generals, a recently published book about the two women.
"They were living in a kind of ghetto. It was very remote. The air force families had their own food store, their own cinema, their own school. It was a very close community."