Chile vote: Bachelet ahead in presidential election
Michelle Bachelet needs 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff on 15 December
Left-wing candidate Michelle Bachelet is leading in Chile's presidential elections, partial official results indicate, but not by enough to avoid a second round.
With 20% of votes counted, Ms Bachelet had 46% percent of the votes.
Her main rival, Evelyn Matthei, a former Labour minister in the centre-right government of President Sebastian Pinera, has 25%.
Candidates need more than 50% of the vote to avoid a run-off next month.
Sunday's vote went ahead without major incidents.
But students, who for years have been staging protests demanding educational reform, occupied the campaign headquarters of Ms Bachelet.
They laid out a banner outside the building which read: "Change is in the streets, not in the Moneda [Presidential Palace]."
Ms Bachelet and Ms Matthei grew up in the same neighbourhood but their fathers - both air force generals - were on opposite sides of the political divide during the military coup of 1973.
Ms Matthei served as labour minister in the centre-right government of President Sebastian Pinera.
Evelyn Matthei was labour minister in Mr Pinera's government
She says Chileans are better off than four years ago.
Ms Bachelet, a paediatrician by training, was Chile's first woman president between 2006 and 2010. She was constitutionally barred from serving a second successive term.
She leads an alliance of her Socialist Party, Christian Democrats and Communists and has campaigned on policies designed to reduce the gap between rich and poor.
Chile is one of the richest countries in Latin America, but millions have staged protests over the past few years to push for a wider distribution of wealth and better education.
Ms Bachelet, 62, wants to increase taxes to offer free university education and reform political and economic structures dating from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled from 1973 to 1990.
Her manifesto this time is much more radical than before, says the BBC's Gideon Long in Santiago.
"We have to win broadly, we're in this game for the first round because we have so much to do," Ms Bachelet told a campaign rally on Thursday.
Evelyn Matthei, 60, has called for a continuation of the policies of outgoing President Sebastian Pinera, asserting that Chileans are "better off" now than when he came to power four years ago.
She and Ms Bachelet are the daughters of generals, once friends, who found themselves on opposite sides of the political divide once Gen Pinochet came to power.
As children in the 1950s, they were neighbours and used to play together on the airbase where their fathers worked.
Some 13.5 million Chileans were eligible to vote
Under Gen Pinochet, Evelyn Matthei's father, Fernando, rose up the ranks to run a military school.
Michelle Bachelet's father, Alberto, who worked for the Socialist administration overthrown by General Pinochet, died of a heart attack in 1974.
An investigation concluded that the 51-year-old general probably died of heart problems aggravated by torture sessions at the military academy.
A judge ruled earlier this year that General Matthei had no knowledge or involvement in the torture.
More than 13 million Chileans, more than two thirds of the population, are eligible to take part in the election.
Other candidates standing in the election include an economist and relative newcomer to the political scene, Franco Parisi, and the film maker, Marco Enriquez Ominami.
The lower house of congress and half the senate are also being elected.
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