Bachelet must contend with an increasingly restless Chile Michelle Bachelet's win in Chile's presidential elections on Sunday suggests she will cruise to victory in a second round vote next month, but she may struggle to deliver the sweeping reforms she has promised. The centre-left Ms Bachelet, who was Chile's president from 2006 to 2010, won 46.7 per cent of the vote, thrashing the government's rightwing candidate, Evelyn Matthei, who won 25 per cent. Although Ms Bachelet fell short of the outright majority she needed in order to avoid a run-off vote on December 15, a sturdy performance by her coalition in parallel congressional elections has raised expectations that she will be able to push through laws to pacify widespread discontent with high levels of inequality. "Since the return of democracy in 1990 there has never been such a favourable congress for the president," said Marta Lagos, a pollster who runs Mori Chile, who said the result represents a crushing defeat for the rightwing, which could now suffer a bitter period of recrimination. "There is a mandate for change," she added. Ms Bachelet's New Majority coalition won 68 out of 120 seats in the house of deputies, compared to 57 currently; while gaining one extra seat in the senate, giving it control of 21 out of 38 seats. That clears the way for tax reforms, which only require an absolute majority in congress, and may also put educational and electoral reform within her reach, since they require four-sevenths and three-fifths majorities respectively. Still, her ambitious plans to change the constitution, which dates back to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and which many Chileans see as illegitimate, may meet with disappointment given the two-thirds majority required. "They have been trying to sell this as a great triumph - and it is in the sense that the right has imploded in a very dramatic way - but it doesn't mean that they are going to be able to implement their legislative agenda without some trouble," said Robert Funk, a political scientist at the University of Chile. Mr Funk, who thinks that working with congress "will be more like something out of an episode of the West Wing," points to a notorious lack of discipline in Chile's congress, as well as a lack of consensus and divergent interests within Ms Bachelet's broad coalition, which ranges from Christian Democrats to communists. The problem is that Ms Bachelet will have to contend with increasingly restless and demanding social movements, in particular students whose sometimes violent protests dogged the presidency of the billionaire incumbent, Sebastián Piñera. The government will now also face pressure from the students from within congress, after four of their leaders won seats on the house of deputies on Sunday. "Bachelet has to move quickly to avoid the social movements causing trouble," said Mr Funk, who suspects that reform may be more gradual than the students demand. "The students will be a huge problem for Bachelet," he added. In addition to political obstacles, there are concerns that an over-dependence on copper, which provides about half of export earnings, as well as a slowing economy, which is expected to grow by 4.3 per cent this year compared to almost 6 per cent over the past four years, may also pose problems for Ms Bachelet. "Michelle Bachelet is set to inherit an economy which has become increasingly vulnerable to external shocks," Michael Henderson, an economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a report on Monday. Mr Henderson points to a fall in investment levels - partly because of fears over Ms Bachelet's reforms that include a hike in corporation tax and amendments to foreign investor protection rights - and an "uncomfortably wide" current account deficit. A fall in the price of copper, with Chile accounting for almost a third of global production, could cause the deficit to balloon, he warns. Falling copper revenues and slowing growth could also make it harder for Ms Bachelet to pay for her ambitious reform programme, including the provision of free education for all university students. Although Ms Bachelet plans to pay for education reforms by raising tax revenues by 3 per cent of gross domestic product, Felipe Larraín, the finance minister, warns that this itself could harm growth. For example, the plan to raise corporate taxes from 20 per cent to 25 per cent is "a mistake," he says, arguing that such major tax reforms should be based on consensus. "If the economy doesn't keep growing, then Chile won't become a developed country," he warns.