By Ernest CoreaRepublished courtesy IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
WASHINGTON DC (IDN) - Travellers flying in from Connecticut to Washington DC on Sunday (Oct. 31) evening liked the feel of the aircraft in which they were seated and some of them commented on it. Little did they know, however, that the country in which the aircraft was manufactured was about to make history. In Brazil, where, shall we say, machismo is not unknown, a woman candidate shattered the ultimate glass ceiling.
The country's Supreme Electoral Tribunal announced at the end of vote counting that Workers Party candidate Dilma Rousseff had won a runoff election against the governor of Sao Paulo, Jose Serra, by a substantial 12 percentage point spread (56 to 44). When she takes her oaths on January 1, she will become the first woman to serve as Brazil's president.
Rousseff probably would have preferred to carry the day in the first round of voting, and not face a run off. She was thwarted by a third candidate, from the Green Party, who garnered 19 percent of the votes, a fact that political campaign managers will keep in mind for the future.
TWO-TERM LIMIT
Critics might say that what actually happened on Sunday was that the globally respected administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected to a third term without his name being on the ballot. A limit of two consecutive terms as president prevented him from facing the hustings.
Lula is undoubtedly hugely popular at home, and very highly regarded abroad. President Barack Obama has described him as "the most popular politician on earth." His international rating is not known, but his approach to foreign policy is well respected, as is his foreign minister, Celso Amorim.
At home, Lula holds an approval rating of over 80 percent; a showing that every democratically elected candidate in the world would dearly love to match, knowing that it would be almost impossible for any one of them to outdo that. He selected Rousseff as the Workers Party candidate and is reported to have worked tirelessly for her election.
Despite all that, it would be unfair and off the mark to deny Rousseff her personal achievement.
'PARROT'S PERCH'
Her entry into public life was as a left wing supporter; a Marxist guerilla commander, the military said at the time. Troops captured her in 1970, and her incarceration without due process included torture. Here is how the Washington Post describes her experience: The torture "included hanging upside down from a metal bar, her wrists wrapped to her ankles in an excruciatingly painful position called the 'parrot's perch.'"
She came through that experience with her spirits strengthened. On her release from brutal captivity she went back to her academic studies in economics, began a career in public life, and gravitated towards the Workers Party.
Rousseff was Minister of Energy in the Lula administration's first term, at a time when Brazil energy industry was innovative and successful. In his second term, Lula appointed her as his Chief of Staff which, in effect, gave her authority over the country's bureaucracy.
Her election owes much to the effectiveness of the Lula administration, of course, as well as to her own capacities. It is also in keeping with the expanding role of women in politics in South America as elsewhere.
WOMEN IN POLITICS
Sirima Bandaranaike (Ceylon, now Sri Lanka) was the first woman elected to hold office as Prime Minister. That was in 1956. Since then, over 50 women have been elected as heads of government or state. They included Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Violet de Chamorro (Nicaragua), Pamela Gordon (Bermuda), Janet Jagan (Guyana), and Christina Fernandez de Kirchner (Argentina).
Women have also held and continue to hold key positions in international institutions. In fact, some of the most sustained agitation for women's rights has been in or through the UN family of organizations. As a result, several women now hold senior positions in the UN family. Michelle Bachelet was recently appointed head of UN Women, the new UN body for gender equality and women's empowerment. The numbers are still lopsided, nevertheless, and there is growing awareness of the imbalance and increasing efforts to correct it.
In Brazil, equal rights are guaranteed to women and men under the constitution. Women's involvement in the democratic process has continued to increase and 51 percent of all voters are women. However, only around 9 percent have been elected to serve as federal deputies.
Despite the increasingly important role of women in public life, however, in Brazil as in many other countries, the record on social issues -- such as domestic violence and rape, including spousal rape -- is spotty.
Perhaps that is why Rousseff said in her victory speech that "as a woman" she would emphasize gender issues. In that connection, she added: "I hope the fathers and mothers of little girls will look at them and say yes, women can."
PUZZLING PARADOX
Rousseff's comments go the heart of a societal paradox in many countries where family issues particularly among the less well-off remain neglected although women hold important leadership positions at high levels in the state or corporate apparatus.
Women who reach the highest or high positions in political life are often so ensnared by broader questions of public policy -- national security, ethic cohesion, and so on -- that they tend to give gender issues less priority, often entrusting their resolution to trusted associates or staff and losing sight of what is actually taking place. Even such sensitive issues as reproductive choice and women's health could then take second or third place.
Rousseff is unlikely to dodge gender issues. Her own background and the struggles she faced while getting to where she now is would have immersed her in questions related to the role of women in public life.
Both as a minister and as chief of staff she would have noted at first hand how women's rights turn into passing distractions when more controversial and vexing situations need to be managed.
In keeping with the undertaking she made while campaigning to preserve and extend the Lula legacy she will certainly be preoccupied with broader poverty issues. Perhaps she will have the sagacity to persuade others that gender issues and poverty issues are often inseparable.
PRO-POOR MISSION
Rousseff has already said: "My mission is to eradicate poverty." Is this a convenient excursion into populist rhetoric or a deeply felt commitment? Perhaps a little bit of both.
An elected president is usually a politician. Rousseff certainly knows that choosing the right words is sometimes essential to political longevity. Equally, her career up to now and her commitment to move the Lula legacy forward leave little room for doubt that pro-poor policies mean more than just words to the new president.
Lula inherited a Brazil that had many bright spots interspersed with blighted ones. The favelas, collections of shacks that might elsewhere be considered uninhabitable, were not only centres of poverty. They have been hotbeds of crime.
The Lula administration worked hard at reducing poverty, and achieved considerable success with a program which emphasized direct cash grants to those whose children maintained good records of school attendance and who had passed through immunization programs. Some 20 million Brazilians began to move out of poverty. This is a drop in the Amazon for a country with a population of 190 million but it is an effective start, and one whose continuance is in keeping with Rousseff's mission.
Rousseff has already talked about her views on how low-cost housing, better policing and, above all, education, will help to draw the downtrodden back from the abyss of poverty. Her words are moving in the right direction. Clearly, 56 percent of Brazil's voters are convinced that her actions will do so, too.
If she lives up to their confidence in her, the act of breaking the highest glass ceiling will turn out to be true change and not just a symbolic act.
