Isabel Allende, not to be confused with the Chilean writer who also goes by that name (and also happens to be the politician’s second cousin), will hold the same seat her father did before he became the first Marxist president to be elected in South America and then ousted by Augusto Pinochet and his buddies in the U.S. The daughter of the deceased leader will break ground as a politician and a woman in Michelle Bachelet’s administration. Bachelet has also succeeded in reaching another first for Chile as she will be its first female president beginning next week.

The Guardian:

MPs of president-elect Michelle Bachelet’s New Majority party chose Isabel Allende as their leader on Thursday. She takes up her new post on 11 March after Bachelet’s swearing-in.

Allende said she hoped her role would help other women to enter politics. She added that she was proud to hold the same post that her father held between 1966 and 1969.

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—Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata

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#augusto pinochet#chile#michelle bachelet#politics#salvador allende#south america