Obituary: Carme Chacón

Carme Chacón, Spain’s first female defence minister and a leading Socialist politician, was found dead on Sunday, April 9th at her home in Madrid. She was 46.

The Spanish Socialist Party confirmed her death, saying that emergency services had discovered her body. An autopsy was to be performed. Chacón was known to have had a congenital heart condition.

Until she narrowly lost a contest to lead the Socialist Party in 2012, Chacón was talked about as one day becoming Spain’s first female prime minister.

She is most widely remembered as having become a symbol of Spain’s progress toward gender equality when she was named defence minister in what was the first female-dominated cabinet in Spanish politics, under prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

Chacón had earlier been housing minister under Zapatero, during his first term, but she took on the defence portfolio in April 2008 after he won a second term. That appointment ruffled feathers in Spain’s traditionally macho society; what was more, Chacón had no previous experience with either the defence industry or the military.

But her appointment was in line with Zapatero's commitment to guarantee balanced political representation and to push through sexual equality laws. Nine of the 17 members of his cabinet were women, and in 2005 Spain legalised gay marriage, despite conservative opposition and fierce lobbying by the Catholic Church.

Chacón, who was 37 when she became defence minister, largely silenced her critics by showing a determination to modernise the military and by visiting Spanish troops stationed in Afghanistan and in other conflict zones shortly after her appointment, even though she was seven months pregnant.

Pictures of her wearing stylish maternity clothes while reviewing troops made the front pages in the Spanish newspapers.

When Chacón went on maternity leave, her defence duties were temporarily taken over by Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the interior minister.

Leadership struggle

In November 2011, the Socialists suffered a crushing defeat in the general election, in the midst of the euro debt crisis and record unemployment. Chacón then vied to succeed Zapatero as Socialist leader. But she lost to Rubalcaba by 22 votes in the party leadership election in 2012.

After her defeat, Chacón retreated from the front-line of Spanish politics and eventually joined a Spanish law firm, although she stayed on as a senior party official and last year played an active part in an internal party revolt against Pedro Sánchez, who succeeded Rubalcaba, forcing his ouster as Socialist leader.

Chacón started her political career as a town hall official in Esplugues de Llobregat, her birthplace in Catalonia. She was first elected as a lawmaker in the Spanish Parliament in 2000.

Besides her work as a lawyer, she was a visiting professor of politics at Miami Dade College.

Chacón discussed her heart condition in an interview in 2015, acknowledging that doctors had advised her as a child to lead a quiet life. Her health problems "make me think that every day is a gift", she told the newspaper La Vanguardia.

Her marriage to Miguel Barroso ended last year in divorce. She is survived by a son, Miquel.