…the almost right word

It looks like General Augusto Pinochet’s daughter is entering the political realm. The BBC reports that Lucía Pinochet Hiriart will run in a Santiago municipal election in October. In 2007, Lucía, along with her mother and siblings, were all detained based on the suspicion of aiding Pinochet in embezzlement during the dictatorship. The eldest son was the only not cleared of the charges.

In 2006, Lucía praised her father for having fought a “flame of freedom” during the military junta of 1973. She had intended to run for an independent seat in Parliament in 2007 prior to her arrest. Although a municipal position has limited power, speculations are being made that the acquisition of this seat would “test the political climate for the 2009 presidential election.”

The country’s first female president was elected in 2006 — Michelle Bachelet was one of the many who disappeared during Pinochet’s regime. She was held and tortured at Villa Grimaldi, a notorious detention center in Santiago (I visited Villa Grimaldi in my time in Santiago. They’ve turned the concentration camp into a public park of sorts, commemorating the deaths and losses with beautiful trees and statues, while still mainting the enormous watchtower that existed during the dictatorship). In 1975, Bachelet and her mother were exiled to Australia. She did not return to Chile until 1979, when the totalitarian regime was brought to an end with a plebiscite. Despite Bachelet’s personal experience with such atrocities, she has led Chile on a path of true progress. In 2007, she passed a law allowing girls, 14 years and older, to receive the morning-after pill without their parent’s consent. This is an enormous step in a nation which has been controlled by the Church for decades.

I can only wonder if progress like this will continue if Chile’s citizens support the election of Pinochet’s offspring.