The world's most powerful women

Germany has ushered in its first female chancellor, the US is gearing up for an all-woman presidential battle - so, wonders Mary Dejevsky, is sex no longer a political issue? Plus, Anne Penketh introduces the exclusive club of female national leaders

Ever since her prospects of taking Germany's top job were first mooted, Merkel has been adamant that she should not be compared to Margaret Thatcher. "I'm a physicist, she's a chemist," she began briskly when I asked her the obvious question earlier this year. But the comparison is unavoidable. Margaret Thatcher - who has just celebrated her 80th birthday - has set the standard by which all who come after her shall be judged.

Thatcher survived every ordeal that the men's world set for her. She mastered each and every portfolio they placed in front of her. She outfoxed the men in political strategy; she outlasted them in stamina and showed a steelier backbone than they did when she dispatched the Navy to recapture the Falkland Islands and told George Bush senior not to "go wobbly" over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

At the same time, she managed to meet most of the men's expectations of women. She was married, with twins. She could look domestic or glamorous as required. She could flirt if she chose, and she was partial to a whisky or two in the Downing Street flat out of hours. Her feminine side was the ultimate weapon she could use to disarm adversaries. Venus or Mars, "soft power" or "hard power", Mrs Thatcher could deploy either or both as required.

This is what it takes to be the consummate woman leader, even now. Most women leaders past or present have fallen short in one aspect or other. How resistant German voters were to the prospect of a woman chancellor is hard to quantify. Merkel is not a natural campaigner; she made tactical mistakes. But her failure to meet the demands of German voters for both male and female traits was arguably one reason why her predicted landslide did not materialise.

Some women felt that she had let her sex down by behaving too much like one of the boys. "She's a man making it in a man's world. We don't recognise the woman in her," several independent-minded women told me during the campaign. Others - including Chancellor Schroeder's wife, supposedly speaking as a journalist rather than spouse-supporter - suggested her life experience was incomplete because she does not have children. She had reluctantly bowed to the pressure of the Christian Democrat hierarchy by marrying her long-time partner before being elected head of the party. But for her childlessness to become an election issue - as it did - reflected both the conservatism of German society, where mothers still tend not to work, and her own reluctance to hit back smartly in her own defence. This was one time, critical supporters agreed, when she heeded a feminine instinct she might have done better to ignore.

Surveying those currently in national leadership positions around the world, a variation on the old axiom still holds as true of women as of men. Some are born to leadership; some achieve leadership; and some have it thrust upon them. Down the years, very many women, not only the crowned heads of Europe, owe their leadership positions to their birth. Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia and Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines come to mind, as well as Aung San Suu Kyi, prevented by the military dictatorship from becoming leader of Burma.

Others owe their elevation to marriage and early widowhood: they had leadership thrust upon them, and in many cases proved more than equal to the task. Eva Peron, Corazon Aquino and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, head the list. More unusual is Sonia Gandhi, who had leadership thrust upon her and chose to delegate it.

Merkel is one of those women - rare in the past (Golda Meir comes to mind), but now increasing in number - who has risen to national leadership largely by her own efforts. Which is to say, by a similar combination of expertise, chance, ambition and patronage as most male politicians. The key, though, is patronage from within the existing establishment. Today, outside the Scandinavian countries where women are now becoming a determining part of the establishment, that still means the patronage of men, commonly in political parties or - for some of those who emerged in the post-Communist states of Europe - the trade unions. It was Conservative power-brokers, such as Airey Neave, who helped Margaret Thatcher to power. Merkel was the protégé of Helmut Kohl, hailed as one of the great chancellors for presiding over the peaceful reunification of his country.

Another ingredient, not unique to women, but often helpful, is the frequency with which their abilities or ambitions are underestimated. Both Merkel and Thatcher were initially merely tolerated as leaders of their respective parties because they were deemed harmless and the men judged that their time at the helm would be short-lived. With Thatcher, the rest was history. With Merkel, the next few months should show.

But woe betide a strong woman without a sturdy armour of patronage. Ask Segolene Royal in France. Royal, long-time partner of the Socialist Party leader, mother of his children, but also a former minister and an impressive politician in her own right, was bold enough to suggest she might entertain a bid for the French presidency next time around. The catcalls resounded loud and long. Through most of the Western world women can now rise to ministerial level without raising eyebrows, national leadership, however, is another matter.

Even the United States, with all its equality provisions and affirmative-action programmes, has not cracked it. This is the country described by Madeleine Albright, its first female secretary of state, as "standing tall and seeing further into the future" than others. So when will it elect a woman president?

Election, to be fair to US voters, is probably less of a problem than securing the party nomination. This is where all the "good ol' boy" back-slapping and fund-raising demands come into play that were so consummately met by the younger George Bush. But there is a third requisite, of course, and this is the perceived ability to win.

The US media are already salivating over the prospects of a contest in 2008 that would guarantee a woman president. Senior Republicans are terrified at the prospect of Hillary Clinton heading the Democratic ticket. Their response? To fuel expectations that the current Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, will run for the Republicans. Both have several 2008 websites in their name, set up by well-wishers. Both hold jobs that, if they were men, would be thought of as springboards for the White House. Both meet almost every requirement for nomination; both are highly competent and ambitious. As for patronage, you could hardly do better than Bill Clinton, on the one hand, and the whole Bush clan on the other.

Ms Rice's disadvantage is that she has never run for office and she has so far kept her private life private. Mrs Clinton's is the opposite: her liabilities - chiefly Bill - are well known and repel as many voters as they draw. But this would be fantasy-politics for real. Imagine a Hillary v Condi debate: two articulate and astutely political women; blonde v brunette; white Democrat v black Republican.

With either of these women, the biggest question may be less whether America is ready for a female president than whether either really nurtures a burning ambition to run. Ms Clinton seems genuinely in two minds. Ms Rice, unidentified "friends" are quoted as saying, would wait to be "drafted", rather than put herself forward. Like many men who have ascended the greasy poll so far, they might just decide they have better things to do.

Leading ladies

Angela Merkel
Germany
Age: 51
In power since October 2005

Forget inappropriate nicknames such as "das Mädchen" (the girl), or "Germany's Iron Lady", the first woman to rule Germany since Maria Theresa of the Hapsburgs remains more like the brainy academic she trained to be, despite the makeover by her minders who spruced up her dowdy appearance. Brought up in East Germany and the daughter of a Lutheran pastor, Merkel took a doctorate in physics before working as a chemist in East Berlin. She entered politics after being inspired by the pro-democracy movement in eastern Europe, and became Helmut Kohl's youngest minister. After becoming the CDU's candidate for chancellor in the 2005 elections, she saw her lead vanish as the election neared. Her electoral performance was blamed on an economic policy fiasco, and the chances of survival of her "grand coalition" look slim.

Tarja K Halonen
President of Finland
Age: 61
In power since 2000

Despite her narrow election victory, when she won with 51.6 per cent of the vote against a former prime minister, Halonen has become one of the most popular presidents that Finland has ever had. She was an unmarried mother who braved conservative public opinion in this strongly Lutheran Nordic nation to raise and educate her daughter alone. (She has since married her partner, a fellow lawyer.) Halonen joined the Social Democrats and ended up as foreign minister from 1995 to 2000, having been given her chance to shine when Finland joined the EU in 1995. You may not be able to name the top 10 greatest Finns, but in a Finnish TV special last year, she was the only living person to be included.

Vaira Vike-Freiberga
President of Latvia
Age: 68
In power since 1999

If the next UN secretary-general is from Europe, Vike-Freiberga is a heavy-hitting contender for the role. Vike-Freiberga had to renounce her Canadian citizenship to become president of Latvia - the first woman to be head of state of an eastern European country. When she was seven, her parents had fled Latvia in the aftermath of the Second World War to escape the Red Army, and eventually they settled in Canada, where Vaira became professor of psychology at Montreal University. Her psychological training and linguistic skills - she speaks fluent French, English, German, Italian and her native Latvian - have been handy in her new job. She stepped into a politically chaotic situation after the Latvian parliament had failed to elect a president and approached her as a compromise candidate, not linked to any political party. Strongly nationalist, she hosted President Bush during a visit to Latvia in May but did not join the other Baltic states in their boycott of Moscow ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of VE Day.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
President of the Philippines
Age: 58
In power since 2001

She may be on the Forbes list as the fourth most powerful woman in the world, but Arroyo is fighting calls for her resignation after narrowly escaping impeachment for allegedly rigging last year's presidential election, in which she defeated a popular matinee idol, Fernando Poe. During her first term, she overcame a coup attempt against her and a Senate investigation of her lawyer husband, Miguel, for money laundering and keeping excess campaign funds. Arroyo, the daughter of former president Diosdado Macapagal and a trained economist, entered politics late in her career when she 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".

Begum Khaleda Zia
Prime Minister of Bangladesh
Age: 60
In power from 1991 to 1996, and again since 2001

Not exactly a desperate housewife, but until the assassination of her husband, the military dictator President Ziaur Rahman, in an abortive coup in 1981, Khaleda Zia had taken little interest in either politics or public life. Even when her husband was in power, she stayed at home looking after the children. In 1983, when limited political activity was allowed under the rule of General Hussain Ershad, Khaleda Zia was appointed vice-chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Eight years later, she was elected the first woman prime minister of Bangladesh in a democratic election. Then began a period of revolving doors in which the two women have dominated Bangladeshi politics. In 1996 it was the turn of Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of the founder of Bangladesh, to win back power. Five years later, in 2001, Khaleda Zia succeeded her rival after another general election. There is no love lost between the two women, who on one occasion refused to shake hands in the presence of the former US president Jimmy Carter.

Mary McAleese
President of Ireland
Age: 54
In power since 1997

Mary McAleese, Ireland's second woman president, is no stranger to political rough and tumble having been raised in the tough Belfast area of Ardoyne. The former academic lawyer was elected unopposed to a second term as her popularity ratings went through the roof. Although the presidency is an honorific post, she has built on the record of her predecessor, Mary Robinson, to carve out a political and diplomatic space, saying her mission was "building bridges". But two incidents have landed her in hot water: she outraged Unionists last January by comparing how some Protestant children in Northern Ireland had been brought up to hate Catholics to the way German children had been encouraged to hate Jews under the Nazis. And her recent outreach to Jackie McDonald, the leader of the illegal Ulster Defence Association who plays golf with her husband, was deemed to be an outreach too far.

Luisa Diogo
Prime Minister of Mozambique
Age: 47
In power since February 2004

Diogo represents the younger generation of the Mozambique Liberation Front who did not take part in the armed struggle for independence. Diogo is a new kind of politician in Africa, who studied economics in Maputo before completing her masters' at London University through a correspondence course. She then went on to work at the World Bank's office in Maputo. After being appointed to the cabinet as planning and finance minister, she kept those portfolios on becoming the first woman prime minister of Mozambique. Diogo was well placed to ensure that her country was on the G8 list of nations to benefit from debt relief. She took Gordon Brown to a sugar plantation north of Maputo in January to press her case, as she reminded the Chancellor at the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

Helen Clark
Prime Minister of New Zealand
Age: 55
In power since 1999

Helen Clark proved she could keep a cool head under pressure when the door of her plane flew open during turbulence on a domestic flight last April. "I've never had a landing before with the plane door open and two policemen hanging off it so it didn't fly right off," she said later. In 1989, the Labour politician became New Zealand's first woman deputy prime minister before going into opposition as leader and then returning to power as prime minister in the 1999 general election. But she needed to negotiate with smaller parties to stay in power with a coalition government after only narrowly winning the last elections in September. Since then her tenure has been far from plain sailing. She is on the back foot with the Maori community over their rights to the seabed and foreshore. Her special interests are in social policy - her government has decriminalised cannabis and legalised prostitution - and international affairs (she is a prominent anti-nuclear campaigner).

Chandrika Kumaratunga
President of Sri Lanka
Age: 60
In power since 1994

Kumaratunga is the latest member of a political dynasty to serve her nation. Both her parents were prime ministers of Sri Lanka: her mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was the world's first woman prime minister. At the time of her election she said that politics was in her blood: her father was assassinated when she was 14 years old, and her husband was gunned down in 1989. She was almost killed herself in an attack by a suspected rebel Tamil Tiger bomber on the last day of campaigning in the 2000 presidential elections. She came to power after pledging to end the war, but several rounds of peace talks came to nothing. Kumaratunga declared a state of emergency after the foreign minister was assassinated in August this year. The government was already severely tested by the Asian tsunami, which killed more than 30,000 Sri Lankans.