4.5% per year, reaching close to 9% in 2008 due to rising food prices. Absolute poverty fell from 13.7% in November 2006 to 11.5% in November 2009. Political issues Bachelet began her term with an unprecedented absolute majority in both chambers of Congress. Prior to the elimination of appointed senators in the 2005 constitutional reforms, the CPD had never held a majority in the Senate. However, she was soon met with internal opposition from several discontented lawmakers in both chambers of Congress, known as díscolos ("disobedient", "ungovernable"). This opposition jeopardized the coalition's fragile and historic congressional majority on a number of key executive-sponsored bills during much of her first two years in office and forced Bachelet to negotiate with a right-wing opposition that she perceived as "obstructionist." By 2007, the CPD had lost its absolute majority in both chambers of Congress as several senators and deputies from the coalition became independent. In December 2006, Pinochet died. Bachelet decided not to grant him a state funeral, an honour bestowed upon constitutionally elected Chilean presidents, but a military funeral as former commander-in-chief of the Army appointed by President Salvador Allende. She also refused to declare an official national day of mourning, but did authorize flags at military barracks to fly at half staff. Pinochet's coffin was also allowed to be draped in a Chilean flag. Bachelet did not attend his funeral, saying it would be "a violation of [her] conscience," and sent Defense Minister Vivianne Blanlot instead. In April 2008, Bachelet's Education Minister, Yasna Provoste, was impeached by Congress for her handling of a scandal involving mismanagement of school subsidies. Her conviction was the first for a sitting minister in 36 years. Foreign relations Argentina During her first year in office Bachelet faced continuing problems from neighbors Argentina and Peru. In July 2006 she sent a letter of protest to Argentine president Néstor Kirchner after his government issued a decree increasing export tariffs on natural gas to Chile, which was considered by Bachelet to be a violation of a tacit bilateral agreement. A month later a long-standing border dispute resurfaced after Argentina published some tourist maps showing contested territory in the south – the Southern Patagonian Ice Field (Campo de Hielo Patagónico Sur) – as Argentine, violating an agreement not to define a border over the area. Peru In early 2007, Peru accused Chile of unilaterally redefining their shared sea boundary in