Chilean leader's popularity hit by son's scandal

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet's popularity has plunged to the lowest level of her current administration, a poll found Tuesday after a scandal erupted over a loan to her son's family.
Bachelet's approval rating fell five points in February to 39 percent, said polling firm Adimark, adding that 52 percent of Chileans now say they disapprove of her.
"Today is without a doubt the worst stumble for the current administration," the pollsters said.
Bachelet, who will mark one year in office next week, is scrambling to deal with the fallout of allegations that her son Sebastian Davalos used his influence to get his wife a $10 million loan.
Davalos has been under fire since revelations emerged that he attended a November 2013 meeting between his wife Natalia Compagnon and Andronico Luksic, the vice president of Banco de Chile and one of the country's richest men.
The meeting ended with the bank granting a $10 million loan to Compagnon, whose application had been rejected by other banks.
Her company used the money to buy land in central Chile that was then rezoned for building construction, enabling the firm to sell it last month at a $4 million profit.
Since the revelations emerged, Davalos has denied wrongdoing but resigned from his unpaid job as head of a government charity and from the Socialist party.
The scandal has been damaging for Bachelet, who campaigned against inequality and the privileges enjoyed by the Chilean elite.
Prosecutors are investigating the affair, which the Chilean press has dubbed "Nueragate," a play on the Spanish word for daughter-in-law.
Bachelet, Chile's first woman president, is a single mother of three children.
She first served as president from 2006 to 2010, before returning for a second term after winning election in November 2013.
Her approval rating fell to an all-time low of 35 percent in September 2007, but she left office in 2010 with 83 percent.
The Adimark poll was carried out from February 2 to 25, with 1,097 respondents and a margin of error of three percentage points.