Isabel Allende (politician)

For other uses, see Isabel Allende (disambiguation).

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Allende and the second or maternal family name is Bussi.

This article is about the Chilean politician. For the Chilean author, see Isabel Allende.

María Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende in August 2011
President of the Chilean Senate
In office 11 March 2014 (2014-03-11) – 11 March 2015 (2015-03-11)
Preceded by	Jorge Pizarro
Succeeded by	Patricio Walker
Senator for Valparaíso
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 March 2018 (2018-03-11)
Preceded by	Ignacio Walker
Senator for Atacama
In office 11 March 2010 (2010-03-11) – 11 March 2018 (2018-03-11)
Preceded by	Ricardo Núñez Muñoz
Succeeded by	Yasna Provoste
Leader of the Socialist Party of Chile
In office 17 May 2015 (2015-05-17) – 9 April 2017 (2017-04-09)
Preceded by	Osvaldo Andrade
Succeeded by	Álvaro Elizalde
President of the Chilean Chamber of Deputies
In office 18 March 2003 (2003-03-18) – 16 March 2004 (2004-03-16)
Preceded by	Adriana Muñoz
Succeeded by	Pablo Lorenzini
Member of the Chilean Chamber of Deputies
In office 11 March 1998 (1998-03-11) – 11 March 2010 (2010-03-11)
Preceded by	Jaime Estévez
Succeeded by	Osvaldo Andrade
Constituency	29th District
In office 11 March 1994 – 11 March 1998
Preceded by	Víctor Manuel Rebolledo
Succeeded by	Adriana Muñoz
Constituency	9th District
Personal details
Born	(1945-01-18) 18 January 1945 (age 79) Santiago, Chile
Political party	Socialist Party of Chile
Children	2
Parents	Salvador Allende Hortensia Bussi
Relatives	Allende family
Alma mater	University of Chile
Profession	Sociologist
Website	Official website

María Isabel Allende Bussi (US: /ɑːˈjɛndeɪ, -di/,^[1][2] UK: /æˈ-, aɪˈɛn-/,^[3][4] Spanish: [isaˈβel aˈʝende] ^ⓘ; born 18 January 1945) is a Chilean politician and the youngest daughter of former Chilean president Salvador Allende Gossens.

A member of the Socialist Party and daughter of former president of Chile Salvador Allende and Hortensia Bussi, Allende served as a deputy from 1994 to 2010 and in March 2010 she became a Senator for the Atacama Region. On 28 February 2014, she was selected as president of the Senate, a position previously held by her father in the 1960s,^[5] making her the first female president of the Senate in Chilean history.

Biography

Allende attended 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, Allende 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 Salvador Allende ordered the women to leave.

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 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]

Political career

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 principal 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]

See also

• Allende family
• Pinochet dictatorship
• History of Chile

References

1. "Allende". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
2. "Allende Gossens". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
3. "Allende, Salvador". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 2021-08-07.
4. "Allende, Isabel". Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Longman. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
5. Isabel Allende chosen as first woman to lead Chile's senate, Associated Press, The Guardian, 28 February 2014
6. Santiago, Associated Press in (28 February 2014). "Isabel Allende chosen as first woman to lead Chile's senate". TheGuardian.com. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
7. "Cotilleos de todo tipo, famosas que se han vuelto actrices porno y Mucho Más!". caras.cl. Retrieved 11 September 2023.
8. "Chile's Salvador Allende - the man behind the legendh". Whanganui Chronicle. nzherald.co.nz. Retrieved 11 September 2023. Director Marcia Tambutti Allende, granddaughter of murdered Chilean president Salvador Allende tells his inside story in Beyond My Grandfather. ... His violent removal from power by Augusto Pinochet in a coup d'état on September 11, 1973, turned Allende into an international symbol of democracy and human rights. ... Tambutti, born two years before the coup
9. Modarelli, Alejandro (12 July 2018). "Las caras de La Moneda". Página 12 (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 20 July 2018. Retrieved 18 October 2021.
10. Ministerio Secretaría General de la Presidencia (2015-05-03). "LEY 20748 REGULA EL EJERCICIO DEL SUFRAGIO DE LOS CIUDADANOS QUE SE ENCUENTRAN FUERA DEL PAÍS". LeyChile. Retrieved 2022-04-01.
11. tayco.cl. "Mi Historia - Isabel Allende Bussi | Senadora Región de Valparaíso". Isabel Allende Bussi | Senadora Región de Valparaíso. Archived from the original on 2017-10-28. Retrieved 2017-10-27.
12. "Quórum de aprobación del TPP-11 continúa generando debate: senadores de oposición recurrirán al TC para zanjar este punto". El Mostrador (in Spanish). 2019-05-19. Retrieved 2021-01-11.

External links

• Official website (Spanish)

Media related to Isabel Allende at Wikimedia Commons

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