STRONG WOMEN-STRONG WORLD
METROINDIA (08-03-2016)
VANAM JWALA NARASIMHA RAO
In 1960 when
Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world’s first woman prime minister in what was
then Ceylon, it caused international concern. How could a woman cope with such
a demanding task? But later years experienced many women-may be more than a
hundred, who have held the position of president or prime minister in several
countries. If all is well USA may also elect a woman President for the first
time in the history. It is now no more a male dominated political world. As of
now, more than 20 countries world over, have women either as Prime Ministers or
as Presidents.
Many women have served as Presidents or Prime Ministers in the 20th
century and serving in 21st century…. Many names will be familiar
and some will be unfamiliar too. Some were highly controversial, some were
compromise candidates and some presided over peace and others over war. Some
were elected, some were appointed. Some served briefly and some for a longer
period. Many followed into office their fathers or husbands, others were elected
or appointed on their own reputations and political contributions. One even
followed her mother into politics, and her mother served a third term as prime
minister, filling the office left vacant when the daughter took office as
president!
Sirimavo Bandaranaike, three times Prime Minister of Sri
Lanka, was the first woman in the world to hold the office of prime minister.
Her daughter later became President then Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. Bandaranaike
only entered politics after her husband was shot by an extremist Buddhist on 26
September 1959. She has become known as the "weeping widow" for
frequently bursting into tears during the election campaign and vowing to
continue her late husband's socialist policies. She however lost the 1965
election after her unpopular alliance with Trotskyites but returned to power in
1970. Her daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, was elected president in 1994 after
serving a short term as Prime Minister and appointed her mother prime minister,
a ceremonial position.
The Nehru family in India, the Bhutto family
in Pakistan and the Sheik Mujibar Rehman family in Bangladesh have all been in
senior positions in their countries for more than a generation. Indira Gandhi,
one of the best-known women of the 20th century, was Prime Minister of India. She
was assassinated in 1984. Her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi has been the AICC
president and virtually ruled the country for ten years as UPA chairperson.
Indira Gandhi in 1964, after her father's death, became minister of information
and broadcasting in the government of Lal Bahadur Shastri. After his sudden
death Indira Gandhi became PM of India. In 1977, Mrs. Gandhi called for fresh
elections, and found herself trounced by a newly formed coalition of several
political parties known as Janata Party. However she returned back to power
within two and half years for a second time. She was assassinated in 1984.
Golda Meir, founder of the state of Israel, originally
was a teacher and an active Zionist along with her husband took part in the
creation of a Jewish homeland. Golda Meir became an officer of the Histadrut
Trade Union and was active in politics. In 1948, Golda Meir was appointed a
member of the Provisional Government. After independence, she became the
Ambassador to the Soviet Union. While serving as Secretary General of the Labor
Party and on the sudden death of Levi Eshkol in 1969, she became Premier of
Israel at age 70. She resigned in 1974 and died in 1978.
Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first female prime minister.
She worked for a while as a research chemist and a barrister, concentrating on
tax law, before being elected to the House of Commons in 1953. She held several
ministerial appointments. She was elected
leader of her Party (the Opposition) in 1975 and became prime minister in 1979.
Known as a strong leader and an "astute Parliamentary tactician”, she knew
how to handle disagreement, no matter from which bench it issued. When her party leadership was
challenged in 1990, she resigned, later also retiring from the House of
Commons. In 1982 she ordered
British troops to the Falkland Islands to retake them from Argentina. Thatcher introduced
the idea that government should stop being the default employer and that the
public sector needed mixed models of delivery – thinking that has been shared
by successive governments ever since.
Soong Sisters of China are perhaps the most popular sisters
who married the most powerful persons of their country. Soong Sisters became
China’s most powerful women – making headlines around the world during their
period. The eldest of them Soong Ching-Ling was married to the richest man and finance minister of
China, H. H. Kung. Soong
Ching-ling, the
second sister was married to Father of Modern China and first President of the Republic of China, Sun
Yat-sen. She became
joint President of the People's
Republic of China from 1968 to 1972 and Honorary President in 1981,
just before the passing of the Constitution of 1982. Soong
May-ling the
youngest was also a prominent political leader in her own right and was wife of Chiang
Kai-shek once president of China. The three sisters have played
influential roles in the politics, economy, and history of modern China.
Benazir
Bhutto was the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan, serving two non-consecutive
terms in 1988–90 and then 1993–96. A scion of the politically powerful Bhutto
family, she was the eldest daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former prime
minister himself who founded the centre-left Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). She
was the first woman to become head of government of any Muslim nation. In 1982,
three years after her father's execution, 29-year-old Benazir Bhutto became the
chairperson of the PPP—a political party, making her the first woman in
Pakistan to head a major political party. In 1988, she became the first woman
to be elected as the head of an Islamic state's government; she also remains
Pakistan's only female prime minister. Bhutto was assassinated in a bombing on
27 December 2007, after leaving PPP's last rally in Rawalpindi, two weeks
before the scheduled 2008 general election in which she was the leading
candidate.
Begum
Khaleda Zia is a Bangladeshi politician who was the Prime Minister of Bangladesh
from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2006. When she took office in 1991,
she was the first woman in the country's history and second in the Muslim world
to head a democratic government as prime minister. Khaleda Zia was the First
Lady of Bangladesh during the presidency of her husband Ziaur Rehman. She is
the chairperson and leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) which was
founded by Rehman in the late 1970s.
Sheikh
Hasina Wazed is the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh, in office since January
2009. She previously served as Prime Minister from 1996 to 2001, and she has
led the Bangladesh Awami League since 1981. She is the eldest of five children
of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, the founding father and first President of
Bangladesh, and widow of the nuclear scientist M. A. Wazed Miah. Hasina's
political career has spanned more than four decades during which she has been
both Prime Minister and opposition leader.
Helen
Elizabeth Clark was the 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand. As Prime Minister she
served three consecutive terms from 1999 to 2008 and was the first woman
elected at a general election as the Prime Minister, and was the fifth longest
serving person to hold that office.
Louisa
Dias Diogo was Prime Minister of Mozambique from February 2004 to January 2010.
She replaced Pascoal Mocumbi, who had been Prime Minister for the previous nine
years. Before becoming Prime Minister, she was Minister of Planning and
Finance, and she continued to hold that post until February 2005. She was the first
female Prime Minister of Mozambique.
Angela
Dorothea Merkel is a German politician and former research scientist who have
been the Chancellor of Germany since 2005 and the Leader of the Christian
Democratic Union (CDU) since 2000. Having earned a doctorate as a physical
chemist, Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989,
briefly serving as a deputy spokesperson for the first democratically elected
East German Government in 1990.
Kamla
Persad-Bissessar was the 7th Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago from 26 May
2010 - 9 September 2015. She was the country's first female prime minister. On
September 21, 2015, Mrs. Persad-Bissessar was appointed Leader of the
Opposition by President Anthony Carmona after her party was defeated at the
polls, following the September 7, 2015 general elections.
Julia
Eileen Gillard is a former Australian politician who served as the 27th Prime
Minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013, as leader of the Australian Labor
Party. She was the first and to date only woman to hold the positions of deputy
prime minister, prime minister and leader of a major party in Australia.
In
future majority of countries, in all probability, may opt for female leaders as
their heads. END
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