Jacqueline van Rysselberghe

Jacqueline van Rysselberghe Herrera (born February 3, 1965 in Chile) is a Chilean politician and psychiatrist who graduated from the University of Concepción. She was mayor of Concepción from 2000 until her resignation in March 2010 to take the office of Indendant of the Biobío Region. Previously, she had been a city council member since 1992.

Van Rysselberghe is a member of the right-wing party Independent Democrat Union where she is one of the five leaders (alongside Hernan Larrain, Evelyn Matthei, Pablo Longueira and Jose Antonio Kast), a position she also held during the period 2004-2006.

Family

Her surname comes from Flanders, Belgium. Her grandfather was François van Rysselberghe. Her great grandfather was Max van Rysselberghe, an engineer who left Belgium when he was about 20 years old on a what was originally planned to be a six-month-long scientific expedition to Antarctica. The expedition lasted two years. Reports of her connection to the Pierre Van Rysselberghe dynasty are, at this point, unverified. During the first year, plans to return to Europe were abandoned when the ice in the waterways failed to thaw during the summer. In Belgium, Max met Isabel Martin, the daughter of Valentin Martin, Chilean Minister of Public Works, who at that time had escaped...
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