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| - Chile's controversial Women's Minister Macarena Santelices, grand-niece of the late dictator Augusto Pinochet, resigned on Tuesday, just 34 days after being appointed. Santelice announced she was stepping aside on Twitter a day after sparking a backlash over appointing as a key advisor Jorge Ruz -- a journalist best known for a TV show in which women were judged in a swimsuit competition. The appointment of Ruz -- a former tabloid editor whose newspaper carried posters of nude models -- was the latest in a slew of controversies that dominated Santelices' brief ministerial career. It proved the last straw for feminist groups who had slammed her appointment on the grounds she lacked experience on women's issues, adopting the hashtag #WeDoNotHaveAMinister. "The day we understand that the cause of women has no political color, that it belongs to all and for all, we can move forward," Santelice wrote on Twitter. "Because of my loyalty to President Sebastian Pinera, to the country and to Chilean women, I have decided to step aside." Santelices' ministry was forced to withdraw a campaign against gender violence featuring a man tearfully apologizing for beating his now-deceased wife, in a letter to his grand-daughter experiencing abuse from her boyfriend. It drew harsh criticism for striking a too-sympathetic tone with abusers. Santelices' May 6 appointment by Chile's billionaire President Sebastian Pinera was controversial from the beginning. She immediately came under fire on social media for defending her grand-uncle's 1973-90 dictatorship that left some 3,000 opponents dead. A former local TV journalist, she was forced to defend her family links to the dictatorship, denying she had ever "endorsed or justified" human rights violations. The government appointed former tourism minister Monica Zalaquett as her replacement. pa/pb/dga/db/ft
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