Carme​ Chacón, Spain's first female defence minister and a leading Socialist politician, was found dead on Sunday at her home in Madrid. She was 46. The Spanish Socialist Party confirmed her death, saying emergency services had discovered her body. An autopsy was to be performed. Ms 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 Mr Zapatero, during his first term, but she took on the defence portfolio in April 2008 after he won a second term. Her appointment was in line with Mr 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 Roman Catholic Church.

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