:quality(80)/cdn-kiosk-api.telegraaf.nl/a941b72e-5f0a-11ec-b90c-0217670beecd.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1)
There is some ambiguity as to whether Hiriart lived to be 98 or 99 years old. Most media put it at 99 years old, but according to her birth certificate she would have been 98 when she died.
Some historians have argued that Hiriart was one of the instigators of the military coup against Socialist President Salvador Allende. That coup brought her husband to power. Hiriart was one of Pinochet’s most important personal and political advisers during his reign. Her death was announced via a brief statement by her son Marco Antonio Pinochet.
:quality(50)/cdn-kiosk-api.telegraaf.nl/a96007f6-5f0a-11ec-b90c-0217670beecd.jpg)
–
Shortly after the announcement of the death of the ex-dictator’s widow, several hundred people took to the streets in Santiago to celebrate the news.
Ⓒ ANP / AFP
—
Hiriart was extremely unpopular among much of the Chilean population. As news of her death spread in Chile, many motorists honked on the road to celebrate her passing. People also gathered in the Plaza de Italia in the center of the capital Santiago to express their joy.
But for supporters of Pinochet, of whom there are still considerable numbers in the country more than thirty years after his regime, Hiriart was precisely a woman who devoted her life to the national interest. Her death comes three days before the country’s presidential election between leftist Gabriel Boric and far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast, who defends Pinochet’s regime.
:quality(50)/cdn-kiosk-api.telegraaf.nl/a983fbf2-5f0a-11ec-b90c-0217670beecd.jpg)
—-
