Allende Grandkid Wins Chile Mayor Race

Maya Fernandez Allende sweeps to victory in leftist wave
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 29, 2012 2:00 AM CDT
Allende Grandkid Wins Chile Mayor Race
Soldiers carry the body of President Salvador Allende out of the destroyed presidential palace after the 1973 coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet that ended Allende's three-year government.   (AP Photo/El Mercurio, File)

The granddaughter of Chile's late socialist leader Salvador Allende has won her first major political election. The victory of Maya Fernandez Allende, who will now be mayor in Nunoa, came as leftist parties regained lost ground in municipal elections across the nation. Allende, a veterinarian, grew up in Cuba with her exiled mom after her grandfather was killed in Gen. Augusto Pinochet's CIA-backed 1973 coup.

The left's biggest victory was in Santiago, where Carolina Toha defeated ultra-conservative Pablo Zalaquett of the Independent Democratic Union, reports the AP. Ironically, Toha served as former President Michelle Bachelet's spokeswoman. Her father, Allende's vice president, died after being jailed and tortured. (More Mary Fernandez Allende stories.)

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