Women in Politics
As a result of the “velvet revolution” that occurred in Georgia in November 2003, the office of president passed to parliamentary speaker Nino Burdzhanadze. This is the first time in the CIS that a woman has become head of state, although it is not uncommon in world politics. Patriarchy seems to be the general case in Asian politics.
Nino Burdzhanadze: the Daughter and Wife Who Stunned Georgia
Nino Burdzhanadze’s star rose swiftly, and for many, completely unexpectedly. This smart, attractive women seemed to have everything, so why was she in big-time politics? Her husband is Badri Bitsadze, Judge Advocate General of Georgia. Her father, Anzor Burdzhanadze, is well known in Georgia as a bread magnate (he is head of Korporatsiya Khleboproduktov, a large bread-baking plant) and long-time friend of Eduard Shevardnadze. It is hard to imagine a more solid family background; she could have been content to study international law in the law faculty of Tbilisi University.
However, it became clear that Nino Burdzhanadze had no intention of retreating into academia. In 1992, she became a specialist of the parliamentary foreign relations committee, and three years later, was elected deputy. Over the next six years, she gradually moved higher up the parliamentary ladder, becoming parliamentary speaker in November 2001.
Did she already have presidential ambitions back then? By her own admission, no. Just over a year ago, on November 15, 2002, to be exact, Nino Burdzhanadze declared that, “ I have no plans to put forward my candidacy for the post of president in the next ten years,” since “I’m not ready to take on such an enormous responsibility.” Another of her arguments was that “there are enough worthy presidential candidates in Georgia.”
She may actually have believed this at the time. After all, before the events of November 2003, few could have imagined that Eduard Shevardnadze would resign in a matter of days. And although Mikhail Saakashvili was the only opposition candidate nominated to run in the presidential elections scheduled for January 4, 2004, Nino Burdzhanadze proved that she was also a worthy candidate for president, if not for these elections, then in the next ones. She was the one who rose to the leadership of the country at the most difficult moment and prevented chaos and bloodshed. It is worth noting that the United States was the first country to acknowledge her as acting president of Georgia. Only a few hours after Eduard Shevardnadze’s resignation, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher made a special announcement: “The United States Administration is prepared to cooperate with the president during the transition period in her efforts to preserve the integrity of Georgia’s democratic order.” Nino Burdzhanadze later telephoned Secretary of State Colin Powell. After expressing his satisfaction that the situation in Georgia had been settled by constitutional means without the use of force, Powell assured her that the United States was ready to assist Georgia in future. Evidently, they were pleasantly surprised in the White House when this striking Georgian woman with a firm masculine character appeared on the scene and confidently declared that her country would start life afresh.
Sonia Gandhi: the Daughter-in-Law and Widow Who Aroused India
As Georgian opposition leader Nino Burdzhanadze and her colleagues were working to oust 75-year-old President Shevardnadze, Indian opposition leader Sonia Gandhi, daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi and widow of her son Rajiv, was doing her utmost to prepare to replace 74-year-old Atal Bihari Vajpayee as prime minister in the 2004 elections.
After the era of Indira Gandhi, no one in India doubted that a woman could govern the country as well as a man. However, in 1990, when Sonia Gandhi stood at the funeral pyre of her husband Rajiv, the Indian prime minister assassinated by Tamil terrorists, she was seen only as a widow, not as a potential candidate for the role of national leader.
The main problem was her Italian origin. Even though she had married Rajiv many years before, had lived in India for a long time, wore a sari, and spoke Hindi, India’s political elite had traditionally regarded her as a foreigner. The ruling class reacted with hostility to the first timid suggestions appearing in the press that Sonia was the only one who could revive the Nehru–Gandhi dynasty. Politicians were indignant: “An Italian prime minister would be the last straw! We have a population of one billion. Can we really not find one deserving Indian among us? How can someone from another culture govern a country like India?”
This was more or less how Sonia Gandhi was regarded right up to the end of the 1990s. But then the mood of the political elite and society as a whole underwent a sudden change. Sonia essentially worked a miracle. As leader of the Indian National Congress (INC), the main opposition party, which had gone through some hard times after the deaths of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, she accomplished a radical party reorganization. The INC, which many had regarded as moribund, got a second wind; and Sonia Gandhi became a charismatic figure, whom party colleagues now believe is the only worthy candidate for the post of prime minister. It is noteworthy that Russian President Vladimir Putin met with her as leader of the opposition during his visit to India in 2002. Observers took note of this unexpected meeting and suggested that it was a kind of inspection of a potential new Prime Minister of India.
There is no doubt that the ruling nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will add the slogan “No Italian for India” to its arsenal and find support among a large proportion of Indian voters. However, even if Sonia Gandhi fails to win the election, the future Indian prime minister may still be a woman, moreover, one from the same Nehru–Gandhi dynasty that governed India for nearly half a century. This woman is Sonia Gandhi’s daughter, Prianka. Prianka Gandhi is the INC’s delayed-action secret weapon, so to speak. No one can call this young woman, who bears a striking resemblance to her father, an Italian. So even if her mother is unsuccessful, she will succeed one day. Today, Prianka heads the youth wing of the INC, earning her party credentials under her mother’s careful guidance. Thus, there are grounds for the Nehru–Gandhi dynasty’s return to power. It is only a question of whether it will be the mother or the daughter. Or maybe the mother will be first and then the daughter.
“In order to arouse the people, you have to arouse a woman,” said Jawaharlal Nehru. Present events in India prove him right.
Asian Politics or Eastern-Style Feminism
The president of India’s neighbor Sri Lanka is Chandrika Kumaratunge, daughter of the legendary Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who governed the country for 12 years after the death of her husband, Solomon Bandaranaike. Like Sonia Gandhi, Chandrika is the widow of the charismatic Sri Lankan politician Vijay Kumaratunge, who was also assassinated by extremists, not Tamil, but Sinhalese.
Women are also involved in politics in Bangladesh, where two political rivals have been Prime Minister by turns. They are Begum Khaleda Zia, widow of General Ziaur Rahman, who seized power in the 1970s and was later assassinated, and Sheikh Hasina, daughter of the “founder of the new Bangladesh,” Mujibur Rahman, who was also assassinated. Zia currently holds the office of Prime Minister.
The pattern of father–daughter succession has been repeated in Indonesia (President Megawati Sukarnoputri is the daughter of President Sukarno, who was deposed almost 40 years ago) and in the Philippines, whose current president, Gloria Arroyo, is the daughter of the country’s founder and late president. These two were preceded in Pakistan by Benazir Bhutto, daughter of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged in the 1970s by dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, and in the Philippines by Corazon Aquino, whose husband, Benigno Aquino, was leader of the opposition to the regime of dictator Fernando Marcos. Finally, there is Tancu Ciller in Turkey, who is an exception to the rule. She became prime minister as an independent figure rather than as the daughter, wife, or widow of a prominent politician.
Asian politics is a matriarchy—a phenomenon unique in itself. Strange as it may seem, it is intimately connected with the age-old Eastern social structure, in which by tradition women could inherit their fathers’ power if they were more suitable than their brothers. In the West, this practice was an exception. At the same time, for all the clannishness of Eastern politics, within the clan itself, a woman was rarely seen as the equal of a man.
It is worth noting that Asian women from the upper and middle classes began entering the political elite of their countries during national liberation movements, that is, before these countries achieved independence. While Western suffragists were fighting for the right to compete in races or visit bars, women’s organizations in Asia were already making political demands. Naturally enough, women in Asia immediately won what feminist movements in the West achieved only after decades. By the 1950s, there were already large numbers of women mayors, deputies, ambassadors, and ministers in Asia. For example, the first Indian ambassador to the USSR was Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru and a former activist in the Indian national liberation movement.
Ultimately, the traditional system that prescribed “three obediences” for an Eastern woman—to her father in childhood, then to her husband, and finally to her sons in old age—became too confining for the “feminine wave” of Asian politics, at a time when women were proving over and over again that they were capable of more decisive actions than men. After going through a personal tragedy or misfortune, they not only learned to be strong and cultivate a “doubly masculine character”, but also acquired a martyr’s aura. The sympathy they aroused was a powerful support in pre-election campaigns.
When Time magazine named Corazon Aquino Woman of the Year in 1986, she remarked, “If a woman wants to achieve something in politics, she has to be at least twice as good as a man.” Present-day Asian politics presents many examples of this “double superiority”. To all appearances, the example of Asia has caught on in the West and Russia. Women as different from one another as Hilary Clinton and Valentina Matvienko are now following the same path that women of the liberated East, with their “doubly masculine character”, made before them.
Sergei Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 12, 2004
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