Women: Keeping it in the family Suz

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Subject: Women: Keeping it in the family Suzanne Goldenburg reports 




on the rise of powerful women in the dynasties that dominate Asian politics

Women: Keeping it in the family Suzanne Goldenburg reports on the
rise of powerful women in the dynasties that dominate Asian politics 
The Guardian; Manchester; Apr 12, 1999; SUZANNE GOLDENBURG; 

Start Page: 
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Abstract:
The commentators were waiting. Did the mother of six and eye surgeon really
think she could bring down the government and win a pardon for her husband?
She is a novice, they said, without the toughness or the smarts for
politics. But
then they always say that. Since 1960, when Sri Lankans elected Sirima
Bandarnaike as the world's first woman prime minister, to replace her
assassinated husband, women have led governments and opposition movements
in Asia. Dr Azizah [Ismail] is simply joining a long line that includes
Pakistan's
Benazir Bhutto, Bangladesh's Sheikh Hasina Wajed, Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi
and Sri Lanka's Chandrika Kumaratunga.

Full Text:
Copyright Guardian Newspapers, Limited Apr 12, 1999


When Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was arrested on
corruption and
sodomy charges, his wife, Azizah Ismail, refused to stay in the background.
Instead she
stood in front of a poster inspired by the black eye the police gave her
husband on the night
of his arrest and last week announced that she was starting her own
political party.

The commentators were waiting. Did the mother of six and eye surgeon really
think she
could bring down the government and win a pardon for her husband? She is a
novice, they
said, without the toughness or the smarts for politics. But then they always
say that. Since
1960, when Sri Lankans elected Sirima Bandarnaike as the world's first woman
prime
minister, to replace her assassinated husband, women have led governments
and opposition
movements in Asia. Dr Azizah is simply joining a long line that includes
Pakistan's Benazir
Bhutto, Bangladesh's Sheikh Hasina Wajed, Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi and Sri
Lanka's
Chandrika Kumaratunga.

Most have been propelled to the top by tragedy, inheriting their jobs - and
their charisma -
from husbands or fathers who all too often met violent deaths. Such
dynasties are seen as a
peculiarity of Asian democracy and women's ascension is seen as more
peculiar still, given
that the dynasty generally operates in favour of male heirs. Sheikh Hasina
Wajed, Aung

San Suu Kyi and Chandrika Kumaratunga all had male siblings who could just
as easily
have taken over from a slain father, but either the brothers were unwilling
to take on the
dictatorships or their sisters were seen as stronger leaders. In the case of
Benazir Bhutto,
her brothers remained adventurers in exile, plotting coups and acts of
terror against a
well-oiled regime while she, the pampered pet who had never even made her
own bed
before being sent away to college, returned to Pakistan to try to save her
father from the
gallows. She fought the dictators for a decade before she was elected prime
minister in
1988.

Other women have been thrust from civilian one day to politician the next.
Suu Kyi,
daughter of the hero of Burma's independence struggle, returned home a
decade ago to
nurse her dying mother and got swept up in a student revolt against the
military junta. The
life of the Philippines' Corazon Aquino changed after her husband Benigno
was shot dead
on the airport tarmac upon his return from exile. When the Filipinos threw
out dictator
Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, she was able to fill a political vacuum and ease
the country
back into democracy.

As Asian women have assumed the political mantle, the diffidence that is
usually seen as
their birthright has vanished. When Indira Gandhi came to power in the
1960s, after several
years as confidante to a father who was India's first prime minister, her
male colleagues
publicly described her as the `dumb doll' and dismissed her as a pushover.
She proved
them wrong when she suspended civil rights in 1975 and sent soldiers into
the holiest shrine
of Sikhism to crush a rebellion in 1984. In Bangladesh, meanwhile, being a
devout Muslim
doesn't hold Sheikh Hasina back from knock-down fights with the leader of
opposition,
Begum Khaleda Zia, who inherited her role from a husband who ruled the
country in the
late 1970s.

But while women leaders could be seen as somehow morally superior and a good
thing for
their fellow countrywomen, sadly this rarely proves the case. In Pakistan,
Bhutto is accused
of salting away millions of pounds and indulging a husband who was even
greedier. `When
women are in opposition, they can use their inherited charisma,' points out
Anuradha
Chenoy, regional representative of Women in International Affairs in Asia.
`But when they
come to power, they have to compromise. Very often they forget the promises
they made
and take no action on gender issues.'

The point is that these women are the elite. Political parties still resist
the rise of women -
despite the strong example of Indira Gandhi, women hold just 8 per cent of
the seats in
India's parliament and it is little different across Asia. `Women have had a
difficult time
entering politics through political parties,' Chenoy explains. `It is easier
for the president or
prime minister to incorporate his wife or daughter at the elite level than
for women to get in
at the grass roots.' Whether Azizah Ismail's new party reverses this trend
remains to be
seen.