For two countries, mother knows best

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/22/news/females.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/weekinreview/22roht.html

January 22, 2006
The World
Where Political Clout Demands a Maternal Touch
By LYDIA POLGREEN and LARRY ROHTER

MONROVIA, Liberia

IN almost every sense of the word, there is a vast distance between this impoverished West African country and prosperous, sophisticated Chile. But they share a legacy of bloodshed and oppression that color the politics of today. And in both countries last week, it became clear that voters had chosen female presidents not despite - but at least in part because of - their sex.

For Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, an economist and banker who was inaugurated Monday and is the first woman elected president in Africa, and for Michelle Bachelet, a general's daughter who was elected as Chile's first female president, a key to victory was the power of maternal symbolism - the hope that a woman could best close wounds left on their societies by war and dictatorship.

Unlike Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir, the strong women of the previous generation, Ms. Bachelet and Ms. Johnson Sirleaf have embraced what they have both called feminine virtues and offered them as precisely what countries emerging from the heartbreak of tyranny and strife need.

"We have been fighting wars for 15, 20 years in this region," said Rosaline M'Carthy, leader of the Women's Forum in Sierra Leone, who traveled here last week for the inauguration. "To see the first female president elected from a war-torn country shows people are now beginning to see what men have wrought in this region. It is the minds of men that make war. Women are the architects of peace."

On the campaign trail, Ms. Johnson Sirleaf was sometimes called the Iron Lady. But another, more popular name was her favorite: Ma Ellen. In her speeches, she often compared Liberia to a sick child in need of a loving mother's tender care.

Western news reporters, schooled in taboos against referring to female politicians as matronly or grandmotherly, hesitated to use such language to describe her. But she and her supporters heartily embraced it. It conveyed, in this culture, that this candidate might finally bring some unity and peace to a fractured society.

While Ms. Bachelet was more the Western feminist in her style, her core argument conveyed something similar: that she was better prepared than her rivals to heal her society and reconcile the Chilean military with the victims of its rule. She recently joked to a biographer that perhaps she should give up a struggle to control her weight. Otherwise, she said, "Chileans would lose the mother they have been seeking."

Both women suffered for their political beliefs. Ms. Johnson Sirleaf served two terms in prison under the dictator Samuel Doe, and narrowly escaped rape and execution. Ms. Bachelet survived jail, torture and exile under the dictatorship Gen. Augusto Pinochet imposed from 1973 to 1990.

Ms. Bachelet, a pediatrician, Socialist and former minister of health, was named defense minister in 2002. It was in that post that she became a symbol of national reconciliation.

Gen. Alberto Bachelet Martínez, her father, died in 1974 in jail, after being tortured for suspected leftist sympathies. But here was Ms. Bachelet, deliberately seeking out the institution that caused her family's suffering, and telling its wary leaders that she had forgiven her tormenters.

"I'm not an angel," she said in an interview in 2002. "I haven't forgotten. It left pain. But I have tried to channel that pain into a constructive realm. I insist on the idea that what we lived here in Chile was so painful, so terrible, that I wouldn't wish for anyone to live through our situation again."

The message resonated. Many Chileans find it galling that their country is known abroad almost exclusively for General Pinochet, rather than for its booming economy. They felt that Ms. Bachelet, as the embodiment of a more tolerant, pluralistic Chile, could make an ideal icon to replace him.

In addition, public opinion polls showed a yearning for a new, less distant breed of politician. That helped Ms. Bachelet, who had never held elective office.

"Bachelet is not part of the political elite of the governing coalition," said Andrea Insunza, a co-author of a recent biography of Ms. Bachelet. "She was instead imposed on that elite by the public opinion polls" in large part because "she radiates empathy and genuine concern for people."

That is not to say she is a pushover. In fact, political analysts in Santiago suggest that she is unusually wary of others.

Personal betrayals and profound disappointments mark her life. The first came when her father's fellow generals, men she had been raised to call "uncle," jailed him and let him die in prison, ignoring the family's pleas that he be freed. The second came when she was in exile in East Germany. Her lover, Jaime López, returned to Chile, was captured by the secret police and, under torture, gave up the underground Socialist Party structure.

Today, with Chile's economy expanding and political instability just a memory, Ms. Bachelet will inherit a situation much to her advantage when she takes office in March.

But Ms. Johnson Sirleaf faces huge challenges. Liberia's roads, schools and hospitals are in ruin after 14 years of war.

Though peace has arrived, trouble in West Africa is never far away - as last week's sudden resumption of violence in Ivory Coast showed.

Ms. Bachelet has promised a more inclusive cabinet and more women in top jobs. "We are going to have a new style in national politics, with more dialogue and participation," she vowed in her victory speech.

As in Liberia - where the crowd at Ms. Johnson Sirleaf's inauguration was exuberant in expressing hopes for "Mama" - the crowds in Chile gave a clear sign of what is expected of their new leader.

Any other Chilean politician would almost certainly have honored old custom and greeted the men before the women: "Chilenos y Chilenas." Ms. Bachelet reversed the order, calling out, "Chilenas y Chilenos."

The women in the crowd broke into ecstatic cheers.

Lydia Polgreen reported from Monrovia for this article and Larry Rohter from Santiago, Chile.