By  Hugo Odiogor, Foreign Affairs Editor with Agency Reports
As women all over the world celebrated the  InternationalWomen’s Day the  of politcal empowerment of women remais on the front burner.

 

This is to be expected against the background of the emergence of Mrs.Park Geun-hye  as South Korea’s first female president. While women in Nigeria are clamouring for affirmative action to climb to the apogee of their political career, the story is different in Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Liberia, Malawi, Peru, South Korea, Thailand, where women have taken the battle to the men.

In a political culture where the military, traditional and religious rulers play key role in determining who occupies power  in Nigeria, women seem to have a point in demand for an afirmative action which is a highly controversial proposition. Majority of the women who have made to the top in other countries are focusing on social issues like education, health, protection of the environment and efficiency in governance. How strong are Nigerian women in politics on some of these areas? What is the orientation of Nigerian women in politics? A survey of the global political landscape will reveal the impressive array of women who are holding their own in the global power game.

.  Liberia:Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was elected the first female president in Africa and Liberia in 2005 Sirleaf was born in 1938 in Monrovia and studied at American universities before returning to serve Liberia as Minister of Finance from 1972-1973.

After series of political upheavals in Liberia, she went into exile in Kenya and US  She was twice imprisoned for treason for campaigning against Liberia’s former dictators. Since she became president, she has been working to improve health, education, peace, and human rights. Sirleaf has fiercely campaigned against corruption in Lberia.

Argentina:

Argentina elected Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as the country’s first female president in October 2007, when she took over from her husband, Néstor Kirchner. They married in 1975 and have two children: Maximo, 30, and Florencia, 16.

As senator, Mrs Kirchner drove her husband’s legislative agenda through Congress and helped him lobby the courts to prosecute atrocities of the 1976-83 dictatorship. Ms Fernandez, 58, who is a lawyer by training, chose her Amado Boudou, as her running mate. Ms Fernandez is Latin America’s first woman to be re-elected as president, but the victory was personally bitter sweet – the first without her husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, who died of a heart attack.

Brazil: Dilma Rousseff

Dilma Rousseff became the first female president of Brazil on January 1, 2011. Her country has the largest economy, land area and population in South America. She was born in 1947, in Belo Horizonte to a Bulgarian immigrant and earned a degree in economics; she took over from Lula Da Silva. She worked as Brazil’s Minister of Mines and Energy and helped get electricity to the rural poor. When the military took power in 1964, Rousseff joined a resistance organization to fight against military dictatorship in her country; she was arrested, tortured and jailed for two years. After her release, she became active in politics. As a president, Rousseff has given priority to health, education, and infrastructure by making the government more in control of oil revenues.

Peru: Michelle Bachelet

Michelle Bachelet is the  first woman to be elected On January 15, 2006.  Earlier, she was minister of defense in Chile, the first woman in Chile or all of Latin America to serve as a minister of defense.  Michelle Bachelet became Chile’s Minister of Health in 2000, serving under socialist President Ricarco Lagos. She then served as Minister of Defense under Lagos, the first woman in Chile or Latin America to hold such a post. She was born in Santiago, Chile, on September 29, 1951. Her father, Alberto Bachelet, was an air force brigadier general who died after being tortured for his opposition to Augusto Pinoche’s regime. Her mother, an archaeologist, was imprisoned in a torture center with Michelle in 1975, and went into exile. .

Costa Rica: President of Costa Rica Laura Chinchilla Miranda who was elected in February 2010, is the fourth woman president in the  Americas and the first president  Coasta Rica.

Born on March 28, 1959 in San Jose, She majored in political science at the University of Costa Rica in 1977. She received a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University of the United States in 1986 and returned to Costa Rica in 1989.

From 1996 to 1998, she served as the nation’s first female minister of public security. Chinchilla was elected member of the Legislative Assembly in 2002 and in 2006 she became the country’s first vice president. In November 2008, she started her campaign for presidency as a candidate of the ruling National Liberation Party.

Germany: Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel became the first female chancellor of Germany in November 2005 and she is ranked as the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes Magazine. She leads a country that has the largest economy in Europe.

Merkel was born in Hamburg in 1954. She studied chemistry and physics in the 1970s. She became a member of the Bundestag, the German Parliament in 1990 and later served as Germany’s Federal Minister for Women and Youth from 1991-1994. Merkel also was the Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety. She chaired the Group of Eight, or G8. Her main goals are healthcare reform, further European integration, energy development, and reducing unemployment.

South Korea:  Park Chung-hee, was elected the first female president of South Korea in 2013. The Park, the 61-year-old is the daughter of the country’s s former military ruler and she was only nine years old when her father, Park Chung-Hee, came to power through a military coup in 1961.This set the  stage for 18 years of authoritarian rule. She served as her father’s first lady during the 1970s after her mother’s assassination in 1974.She has a degree in engineering from Sogang University in Seoul She made history as the first female president in Northeast Asia, a feat made all the more remarkable considering South Korea is a country where women continue to face widespread sexism, huge income gaps and few opportunities to climb business or political ladders. She has never married and has no children, generating an image of selfless daughter of Korea.