Michelle Bachelet

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<http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1744947,00.html>

Michelle, top woman in a macho world

A milestone has been passed: there are now more women running
countries across the world than ever before. In her first British
interview, Chile's new president tells Diane Dixon of her struggles to
succeed, while, below, we profile six other leaders

Diane Dixon
Sunday April 2, 2006
The Observer

Michelle Bachelet remembers the day of her inauguration as Chile's
first woman leader with pride: 'They were very beautiful moments. I
remember the feeling of joy. In the streets, thousands of women and
children put on presidential sashes. It meant everyone was going to La
Moneda [the Presidential Palace] together with me.'

With that bright display of solidarity on a warm March day three weeks
ago Bachelet became the world's 11th female elected leader. On
Thursday the inauguration of Portia Simpson-Miller in Jamaica made her
the 12th, and just over 6 per cent of countries are led by women.
Discounting the crowned heads of the past, it is a small but
unprecedented number.

What these dozen women have in common - with the exception perhaps of
Bangladesh's Begum Khaleda Zia, who was projected into premiership by
her husband's death - is beating intensely male-dominated odds to
achieve power in some fairly conservative societies. As Bachelet said
in her victory speech: 'Who would have thought, friends... 20, 10 or
five years ago, that Chile would elect a woman as president?'

And who would have thought that a Catholic country that only legalised
divorce a few years ago would elect an agnostic, single mother who
promised equality - exactly half of her cabinet appointees are women.

It is an undoubted phenomenon that this immensely popular multilingual
mother-of-three was able to slash through the bonds of male political
party politics to become Minister of Health and, subsequently, South
America's first woman Minister of Defence. But, in an exclusive
interview with The Observer, Bachelet said she believes the credit
does not go so much to the willing patronage of her male politicians
as to that of the Chilean people, who commonly call their president by
her first name and sing the Beatles tune of the same name to her.

'It was said that Chile was not ready to vote for a woman, it was
traditionally a sexist country. In the end, the reverse happened: the
fact of being a woman became a symbol of the process of cultural
change the country was undergoing. Men voted for me in their majority,
but, for the first time, the Concertación [the Centre Left Coalition
of which Bachelet was the candidate] also won extensively among
women.'

'The possibility of my presidential candidacy emerged spontaneously in
public opinion polls. For my part, I noticed people's affection when I
was doing work on the ground. I think the important thing is that my
candidacy was born from citizens themselves, driven by the people and
which the parties picked up favourably.'

She is the daughter of an air force general, Alberto Bachelet, who,
because he remained loyal to Salvador Allende, was killed by his own
comrades after the coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in
September 1973. She herself was a victim, along with her archaeologist
mother, Angela Jeria, of the worst abuses of the Pinochet
dictatorship, jailed and tortured and exiled first to Australia and
then to Germany. Her only brother, Alberto, died in 2001.

In difficult circumstances under the dictatorship, she qualified as a
doctor and paediatrician, going on to work with child victims of human
rights abuses. But politics were always close to her. Bachelet joined
Chile's Young Socialists in her teens, rising through the ranks and
campaigning for the return to democracy in Chile, which was achieved
in the 1988 plebiscite that ousted the Pinochet regime. When the
opposition lambasted Bachelet for being overweight in the physical
sense and lightweight in the political, her mother's retort was: 'Have
they ever looked at her CV!'

Bachelet the girl was renowned for her insistence on having her views
heard and, according to Jeria, 'was very firm and defended her ideas
forcefully. She never accepted being told that no you can't do that.
She always demanded an explanation. But at the same time she was a
sweet child whose intelligence was noticeable in thousands of
details.'

And it was in her youth, Bachelet says, that 'her most intense
moments' came. 'Having experienced personally and through my family
the tragedy of Chile is something always present in my memory. I do
not want events of that nature ever to happen again, and I have
dedicated an important part of my life to ensuring that and to the
reunion of all Chileans.'

By the mid-1990s, she was established as an adviser in the Ministry of
Health and started studies in military strategy at Chile's National
Academy for Political and Military Strategy on a course normally the
reserve of military commanders. Having graduated, she was awarded a
presidential grant of honour which took her to Washington to take an
elite course at the Inter-American Defence College, where once again
she came first.

'During the transition to democracy, I felt there was a necessity to
unite two worlds, the military and the civic. I felt political leaders
didn't know or understand the military world and that it was
fundamentally important that political leaders got inside the world of
defence to establish a bridge between the two worlds. Given political
history in Chile, it seemed to me that there was a critical task of
consolidating a democracy and creating healthy civic-military and
political-military relationships.'

In 2000, Bachelet was made minister of health by President Ricardo
Lagos and handed the task of ending within three months the queues for
appointments in health centres: 'It was about giving a very clear
signal of making people the central focus of state services. The state
is at the service of people, not the opposite. My impression is that
people understood the message very well, they realised the effort that
we made.'

In January 2002 came another challenge. Lagos took the bold step in
macho Latin America of naming her minister of defence: 'The truth is
that I confronted it with a great deal of calm. My relationship with
the armed forces was proper and normal from the beginning, despite the
fact I was a woman, a socialist and a victim of human rights abuses.
But I must be honest: there was never any improper attitude towards me
in the armed forces for these reasons, quite the contrary. I believe
it is important to highlight this.

'In respect of political achievements, the most important thing for me
is to have contributed to the consolidation of the first process of
reunion between the Armed Forces and society in Chile's modern
history. For many decades the military had aligned themselves to an
ideology that was not shared by the whole country. Today, the Chilean
military have embraced a democratic vision of their profession and are
committed to a democratic state of law. I am pleased to have
contributed to this process. '

Having made the appointment, Lagos asked a close collaborator of
Bachelet's, Carlos Ominami, if he thought she would do well. The
response was: 'If only we had 20 like Michelle.'

Bachelet is also the mother of three children, Sebastián, Francisca
and Sofía, the youngest, who is 12. Two are by her former husband,
architect Jorge Davalos, one by a subsequent boyfriend, Dr Anibal
Henriquez. Her mother gave up her own political activities to help
with the grandchildren and has become a celebrity in her own right.
'Once it took me five minutes to go to the supermarket,' she told The
Observer. 'Now everyone wants to chat and it takes five times that.'

And Bachelet recognises the support: 'It is undeniable that my current
responsibilities demand some changes in my life, but I aspire to
maintaining the most normal family life possible. I hope that not much
changes now I am president. I would like Chileans to remember me as a
transparent woman, who always said what she thought and did what she
said.'

Other female leaders

The Philippines
Undaunted coup survivor

The President of the Philippines may be on the Forbes list as the
fourth most powerful woman in the world, but Gloria Arroyo, 58, is
fighting calls for her resignation after narrowly escaping impeachment
for allegedly rigging last year's presidential election, in which she
defeated a popular film star, Fernando Poe. During her first term, she
overcame a coup attempt and a Senate investigation of her lawyer
husband, Jose Miguel, into alleged money laundering and keeping excess
campaign funds. Arroyo, the daughter of former president Diosdado
Macapagal and a trained economist, was elected to the Senate in 1992.
She came to power in the rollercoaster world of Philippines politics
when former film star President Joseph Estrada was toppled in a
'people's revolution'.

Germany
East Berlin's 'Thatcher'

Often described as the German Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel is the
first female Chancellor of Germany. She is also the first former
citizen of the old communist East Germany to head the reunited
country. Fluent in Russian and English, she grew up in the countryside
north of Berlin. She became involved in the pro-democracy movements
that helped bring down the Berlin wall in 1989 and then entered
national German politics after reunification. Her old East German
party merged with the conservative CDU. She became Chancellor by
defeating Gerhard Schroeder in 2005's narrow elections. After a shaky
start, one poll in January showed that Merkel's popularity ratings
were the highest for any German chancellor since 1949. But it has been
a long hard struggle all the way for the woman whose childlessness
became an election issue for her when critics attacked her for being
'incomplete'.

Liberia
After exile and prison, the chance to rebuild a nation

Liberia's new 68-year-old female president faces one of the biggest
tasks of any world leader: rebuilding her shattered homeland after
decades of civil war. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has said the problems are
so great that even just restoring electricity to the capital Monrovia
will be an achievement. She also faces a country deeply divided
ethnically, flooded with guns and traumatised child soldiers.

Sirleaf has a German grandfather who married a Liberian marketwoman
from a rural village. She went to college in Liberia and then studied
in America, including Harvard. She entered Liberian politics in 1979
and became an assistant minister of finance. During the country's
multiple civil wars in the 1980s and 1990s Sirleaf spent time in jail,
was exiled to Kenya and ended up working for the World Bank. She
returned with the overthrow of warlord Charles Taylor and won
countrywide elections last year, defeating footballer George Weah. She
was inaugurated in January.

Jamaica
'Sista P' breaks male monopoly as she guns for the drug gangs

Portia Simpson Miller, 60, who was sworn in as Jamaica's new Prime
Minister last Thursday, has become the first female leader of a nation
with a very male political culture. She launched her bid to head first
the People's National Party and then the country by ignoring her
critics. She was ridiculed in some parts of the island nation's media
as a 'serial kisser' at rallies and an intellectual lightweight. Yet
Miller confounded the nay-sayers, and her genuine popularity at the
grassroots level of politics saw her swept into office.

Known to many as 'Sista P', Miller is seen as someone who can crack
down on crime, especially the drugs trade, and bring greater economic
development to a country still mired in poverty and drug violence. She
has promised to enlist her friend, star athlete Asafa Powell, in the
quest to end drug-related killings, especially in the slums of the
capital, Kingston.

Miller first entered parliament in 1976. In a male-dominated culture
she fought her way to the top, earning several ministerial portfolios
including labour, welfare and sports. She is married to Errald Miller,
a former chief executive of the Jamaica arm of Cable and Wireless. She
is a keen fan of boxing and golf.

Miller has criticised some aspects of Jamaica's tourist industry,
saying the behaviour of some visitors clashes with the island's
traditional morals.

Finland
Radical leftist goes on with 90 per cent approval

Finland's president Tarja Halonen, 61, has just begun her second term
in office. When it expires in 2012, she will have been the
Scandinavian nation's head of state for 12 years. Raised in a
working-class area of Helsinki, she represents a radical leftist
strand of Finnish politics. She was an unmarried mother - although has
since wed her partner.

Her time in office has put a strong emphasis on pacifism, human rights
and international co-operation. Despite initially coming to office
after a narrow election victory, she has become extremely popular with
Finns of every political persuasion, regularly enjoying approval
ratings in excess of 90 per cent. In 2004 she was the only living
person to be placed in the top 10 of a television programme dedicated
to the country's greatest public and historic figures.

Bangladesh
Widow who inherited the mantle of leadership

As the widow of assassinated president Ziaur Rahman, Bangladesh's
first woman Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia, is among the women who have
leadership foisted on them because of their marriage and subsequent
widowdood. She was premier from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to
the present. Until her husband's death in a 1981 attempted military
coup, Zia had little role in politics. But afterwards she became a
senior figure in her husband's old party, the Bangladesh Nationalist
Party. She has made education for girls, particularly those from poor
rural families, one of her government's top priorities.

Others:

Vaira Vike-Freiberga, aged 68, President of Latvia. Has been in in
power since 1999.
Mary McAleese, 54, President of Ireland since 1997.
Luisa Diogo, 47, Prime Minister of Mozambique since 2004.
Helen Clark, 55, Prime Minister of New Zealand since 1999.
Chandrika Kumaratunga, 60, President of Sri Lanka, in power since 1994.

Women on the verge:

Hillary Clinton, 59, hopes to run as Democratic party candidate in
America's 2008 presidential race.
Ségolène Royal, 52, front runner to be chosen as the Socialist
candidate to fight France's presidential elections next year.
Yulia Tymoshenko, 45, was dismissed as Prime Minister of Ukraine last
September. But the results of last month's parliamentary elections,
which brought her success, have brought pressure on President Viktor
Yushchenko to reinstate her in a coalition government. He needs her
support after suffering a setback.

· Diane Dixon, a commentator and writer on Chilean affairs, was
executive producer, interviewer and translator for 'Cruel Separation',
a documentary about widows of Chile's military coup, including
Michelle Bachelet's mother, Angela Jeria