Atlantica - 01.02.2006, Side 12

10 AT L A N T I CA
It’s a Man’s World
...but not in Chile, Liberia, Germany, and Finland. Or Rwanda,
where more women hold seats in parliament than any other
country, or Sweden, where more women have served as
government ministers then men. The four women below – a
banker, a doctor, a physicist and a lawyer – will all go down in
history as the first women chosen to lead their countries. And
maybe this decade will go down in history as the first time that
the political playing field finally started to level out.
Name: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
Job title: President of Liberia
Party: Unity Party
Nickname: ‘The Iron Lady’
Age: 67
Before she was president: Johnson-Sirleaf was a banker and economist, including
holding the post of Liberian Minister of Finance in the 1970s.
Imprisoned under home country’s military regime? Yes, under the Samuel Doe regime.
Gone into exile? Yes. Twice.
Personal details: Johnson-Sirleaf is divorced, with four children and six grandchildren.
Name: Michelle Bachelet
Job title: President of Chile
Age: 54
Nickname: Not that we’ve heard.
Party: Socialist Party
Before she was president: Bachelet was a pediatrician until she entered public life five
years ago, since which she’s served as Chile’s minister of health and minister of defense.
Imprisoned in home country? Yes, under the 1973-1990 dictatorship of
Augusto Pinochet.
Gone into exile? Yes. Bachelet fled the country after her imprisonment in the 1970s.
Personal details: Bachelet is a single mother with three children.
Name: Tarja Halonen
Job title: President of the Republic of Finland
Age: 63
Party: Social Democrats
Before she was president: Halonen is educated and worked as a lawyer before becoming
an MP in 1979. She continued to work in the Finnish Parliament until 2000, when she
became president. She was re-elected in January 2006.
Unexpected attention: To the delight of some Finns and the chagrin of others, American
talk show host Conan O’Brien heavily endorsed Halonen’s 2005 campaign on the premise
that he and the Finnish president bore a striking resemblance.
Personal details: Married to a Finnish lawyer and mother to one daughter and two cats,
Miska and Rontti.
Name: Angela Merkel
Job title: Chancellor of Germany
Age: 51
Nickname: Germany’s answer to Margaret Thatcher
Theme song: “Angie,” by The Rolling Stones
Party: Christian Democratic Union
Before she was president: Having grown up near Berlin, Merkel earned a doctorate
in physics, joining politics shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. She has been head
of her party since 2000.
The right side of the tracks: Merkel is not only the first female chancellor, she is
the first chancellor from East Germany – a fact some see as a sign that Germany’s
reunification is finally sticking.
Personal details: Married to a German chemist. No kids.
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009 airmail Atlantica 206.indd 10 21.2.2006 11:42:36