MANILA - Imelda Marcos launched a bid for a stunning political comeback Wednesday after registering to run for a parliamentary seat in the northern Philippines where her late dictator husband remains a revered figure.

More than two decades after a popular revolt sent the Marcos family fleeing into exile, the flamboyant widow with the fetish for fancy shoes will seek to take the lower house seat being vacated by her son in next year's elections.

Marcos's spokeswoman Sol Vanzi told AFP the former first lady registered her candidacy late on Tuesday, just before the deadline expired.

"She filed at the last minute in Ilocos Norte," said Vanzi, a longtime Marcos associate.

Ilocos Norte is a province in the northern Philippines where her late husband Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was born, and which remains a Marcos stronghold.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has held one of Ilocos Norte's two seats since 2007 and is standing down so he can make a tilt at the Senate.

A Marcos daughter, Imee, will also run for governor of the province next year against one of her cousins, incumbent Michael Keon, Vanzi said. Imee Marcos had preceded her brother as the legislator for the province.

Long-time Marcos critics and political analysts immediately expressed anguish at her decision to return to politics, which no-one in the media had predicted.

But they said she was certain to win as Ilocos Norte remained a family stronghold that had prospered under the family's patronage.

"Ilocos is their bailiwick and I suppose they have done something good for their constituency," said Conrad Castillo, secretary-general of the left-wing AKBAYAN (Citizens Action Party).

However he expressed sadness at the short memory of voters.

"The new generation, they don’t know what the Marcoses did. The youth must be reminded of what happened more than 25 years ago when (Ferdinand Marcos) was in power."

Ferdinand Marcos ruled the Philippines from 1966 to 1986, earning a reputation as a feared dictator who oversaw the country's economic demise while plundering the country of billions of dollars.

Imelda Marcos became perhaps even more famous than her husband as she travelled around the world enjoying a fabulously extravagant life while meeting and befriending many of of the world's top leaders.

The Marcos family fled overseas in 1986 after a popular revolt toppled the dictator from power. After her husband's death, Imelda Marcos returned to the country in 1991 and made an unsuccessful run for the presidency in 1992.

She was elected to Congress and served from 1995 to 1998, representing her home province of Leyte.

Imelda Marcos has never been convicted of a crime and maintains she has nothing to apologize for, particularly her taste for the finer things in life that saw her amass thousands of shoes.

"I have been so misunderstood," Marcos told AFP in an interview earlier this year inside her two-storey penthouse apartment overlooking one of Manila's wealthiest suburbs.

"My role as first lady was to be a star and a slave. To set the standard because mass follows class. And so I had to enslave myself so that everyone becomes a star."

Former senator Ernesto Herrera said Marcos's comeback was another example of the country's struggle to build a viable democracy and the problems with family dynasties that have ruled their own chunks of the Philippines for generations.

"The candidacy of Imelda is just like what is happening with Gloria Arroyo. Both are running for Congress to replace incumbent relatives," said Herrera, who is now secretary-general of the country's largest labor federation.

"Gloria controls her district, Imelda also controls her district. They will win. What can you expect? It proves there is democracy in this country, but it also shows the weakness of democracy."

In another controversial development, President Gloria Arroyo announced on Monday she would run for a seat in the lower house of parliament in her family's stronghold of Pampanga province.

Arroyo is banned by the constitution from running again for president and her opponents say she is making the unprecedented move of going into parliament so she can try and rule the country from there.