South America ushers in La Presidenta era

The gender-specific rallying cry now seems poised to spread north. In Paraguay, outgoing President Nicanor Duarte is backing former education minister Blanca Ovelar as his replacement in next year’s presidential election. And in Brazil, many political observers say President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva seems to be grooming his chief of staff and former energy minister—a woman named Dilma Rousseff—to carry his party’s torch when his term ends in 2010.

The possibility has South Americans confronting a prospect that just a few years ago would have seemed utterly impossible: a continent where the majority of the population is led by women.

At the same time that American voters are considering the possibility of a female front-runner in Hillary Clinton , people here have been trying to explain the recent surge in female candidates.

The feminine political touch is tricky to define. Fernández de Kirchner briefly danced around the subject during her acceptance speech, obliquely referring to a woman’s “special aptitudes —not better, just special.” Ovelar has also pointed out the advantages of “a woman’s vision” in solving the social problems that voters in South America list as their most pressing concerns.

“I think people just want a change,” said Ana Esposito, a 55-year-old social worker in Buenos Aires.

Their rise to the highest seats of power has been sudden, but women have been working their way up through the region’s political systems for years. Both Bachelet and Fernandez de Kirchner became involved in politics during the 1970s as opponents of military governments. In the 1990s, Bachelet served as a minister of health and defence. Fernández de Kirchner was a senator in the national legislature well before deciding to run to succeed her husband, Néstor Kirchner, who declined to seek reelection this year. Marta Lagos, who conducts polls throughout Latin America and is based in Chile, said both women rose to prominence because their people were desperately seeking a new class of political elites.

That said, she doesn’t believe that the news is all positive for female candidates in South America. In Chile, Bachelet’s approval rating has fallen to less than 50 percent, and she is often criticized for being indecisive. Lagos said she fears a backlash against future female candidates as a result. “She is always saying that when she gets mad, people here in Chile say that she has a bad temper,” Lagos said of Bachelet, “but when a man gets mad, they say he’s a strong leader.”

According to the World Economic Forum’s ranking of 116 countries in terms of gender gaps, opportunities for women in South America still lagged behind those of women in many other parts of the world in 2006. Argentina ranked 42nd in terms of equal opportunities for women, Paraguay 65th, Brazil 68th and Chile 79th, said the survey.

But in terms of political empowerment for women, Argentina jumped to 23rd on the list, ahead of the United States and Canada. Many here credit that to a law passed in 1991 aimed at increasing female representation in the National Congress. The number of women in Argentina’s legislature more than quadrupled immediately after the law was enacted, and 11 other Latin American countries passed similar laws.

Kirchner, who entered Argentina’s national legislature after the quotas were established, is often compared to Clinton, another lawyer, senator and former first lady. During a TV appearance after the election, she wished Clinton well on her campaign. “Why not?” she said. “Another woman wouldn’t be bad.”