Isabel Allende (politician)

She went to the Maisonette College, and unlike her sisters, was initially attracted to the Catholic Church and received her first communion. In 1962, at the age of 17, she began studying sociology, and joined the university's socialist brigade. Five years later she accompanied her father to the congress of the Socialist Party in Chile.

On 11 September 1973, the day of the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, Isabel was the last person to enter the presidential palace. After the military began to bomb the presidential palace, and the outcome was already clear, her father ordered the women to leave.

Isabel's father Salvador Allende, the first Marxist president elected in the Americas, and sitting president at the time of the coup, killed himself rather than surrender to coup plotters led by General Augusto Pinochet in 1973. The military coup launched a bloody 17-year dictatorship.[6] Isabel obtained political asylum in Mexico, with her mother and her sister Beatriz, where she spent sixteen years in exile, before returning to Chile in 1989, in the final stretch of the military regime.

Her first marriage, with Sergio Meza, did not last for long, but they had a son, Gonzalo.[7] Gonzalo (1965-2010) was an activist in the "No" movement leading up to the 1988 plebiscite and a founder of the Party for Democracy. With her second husband, Romilio Tambutti, she has a daughter named Marcia (b. 1971).[8]

Other members of the Allende family have played important roles in Chilean politics. Her niece Maya Fernández, also a member of the Socialist Party, is Minister of Defense under President Gabriel Boric, since March 2022. Gay rights activist Alejandro Fernández Allende is her nephew.[9]

On returning to her homeland, Allende began a successful political career as a member of the Socialist Party of Chile. After Chile's return to democracy in 1990, she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, serving as its President between 2003 and 2004, becoming the second woman to do so after Adriana Muñoz.

Allende, along with Soledad Alvear and several other Senators, sponsored a bill to extend voting rights to Chileans living abroad.[10] The right to vote from overseas was codified by Law No. 20.748, which allowed thousands of Chileans to vote in the 2020 national plebiscite and in presidential elections.

Among her principle successes, Allende has worked to reform Chile's divorce law; a law that allows disabled individuals to be judges and notaries; and a law permitting abortion on three grounds.[11] She has also worked for the passage of bills on gender identity, the water code, and creation of a government service for biodiversity and environmental protection.[11] She supports adhering to the Trans-Pacific partnership.[12]

• Allende family
• Pinochet dictatorship
• History of Chile

• Official website (Spanish)

Media related to Isabel Allende at Wikimedia Commons

• Biography from the Chilean National Congress
• New York Times on exhumation of Salvador Allende