Chacón, a passion for politics
Chacón represented the most naive side of the Zapatero era, and painfully embodied the contradictions of her party, the PSC
Her picture while reviewing troops with a round pregnant belly shattered many stereotypes in Zapatero's Spain. As Minister of Defense, officers stood to attention in front of her, she wore tuxedos at formal events, visited troops in Afghanistan, and allowed herself to be photographed on the Ministry’s roof terrace with her son in a stroller.
Carme Chacón was a courageous woman. Born with a serious congenital heart disease, at a young age she decided to go for it all, following in the footsteps of her mother and her grandmother. At full throttle to the point of running out of gas.
Chacón, who had opted for the mentorship of Felipe González, in contrast to the girl cited by Rajoy during the election campaign, represented the most naive side of the Zapatero era, and painfully embodied the contradictions of her party, the PSC. A representative of the so-called Baix Llobregat strain of Catalan socialism, she lost to the alliance that the old guard of the PSOE had traditionally made with the Andalusia branch to lead the party. If at any moment there had been two souls in the PSC, Chacón always knew that hers was that of low-intensity regionalism, and that her career would go through the PSOE’s Spanish HQ in calle Ferraz (Madrid).
Carme Chacón had often told how she defied her heart condition by doing sport, studying, having a baby, working hard, and always disdaining fear. She died at 46 in the back bench of politics, but her instinct didn't allow her to accept the end of her career. She had too much passion and too much capacity for self-sacrifice to quit.
