Salvador Allende

Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens was a Chilean socialist politician who served as the 29th president of Chile from 1970 until his death in 1973. He has been described as the first Marxist to be elected president in a liberal democracy in Latin America. Due to his commitment to democracy in the pursuit of socialism, and the manner of his death and deposition, he is revered as a hero and martyr by many socialists worldwide, across many different strains of beliefs, to a degree unusual in socialist politics. Allende's involvement in Chilean politics spanned a period of nearly forty years, during which he held various positions including senator, deputy, and cabinet minister. As a life-long committed member of the Socialist Party of Chile, whose foundation he had actively contributed to, he unsuccessfully ran for the national presidency in the 1952, 1958, and 1964 elections. In 1970, he won the presidency as the candidate of the Popular Unity coalition in a close three-way race. He was elected in a run-off by Congress, as no candidate had gained a majority. In office, Allende pursued a policy he called "The Chilean Path to Socialism". The coalition government was far from unanimous. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvado...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)