Famous women presidents

A woman in power in the modern world will not surprise anyone. But it is worth turning your eyes to the pages of history, and we will see that in far from our days, the fair sex representatives stood at the head of the state and quite successfully coped with it. What is the name of the Queen of Sheba, Cleopatra, Maria Medici or Catherine the Great ...

The more surprising is the fact that the current democratically minded society is skeptical of the representative of the female government.

This article will tell the reader in which countries the president is a woman and interesting facts about these ladies.

Inactive presidents

To date, it is recorded in world history that women presidents have taken office thirty-five times. Immediately it is worth mentioning that this number does not include prime ministers, captain regents, state ministers, governors-general, whose positions in different countries are equated with the head of state.

Of these, currently the current presidents are twelve women. Accordingly, twenty-three representatives no longer occupy this post.

The first woman president was elected in a far from us Argentina in 1974. She became Isabel Martinez de Peron. However, this was not the choice of the public. Isabel served as vice president with her husband Juan Perone. Accordingly, after his death, she automatically became the head of the country. However, she was given remarkable support by representatives of many parties, trade unions, as well as the regular army. Dislodged from his post, Isabel was the result of a coup.

The first woman president in her country and the second in the world is Vigdis Finnbogadottir. She became the head of Iceland and held this post for four terms, from the fifth she refused herself. Her policies differed radically from previous ones, since most of her time Vigdis paid attention to the development of the national language and the unique Icelandic culture.

Women presidents do not always begin their careers with political activities. For example, Malta's head Agatha Barbara (1982-1987) was originally a simple teacher at the school.

Corazon Aquino - the president of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992 - was not going to engage in politics at all. She was a housewife, she brought up five children. But circumstances forced her to intervene in state affairs. Her husband, a prominent politician, was an opposition to the current authorities. He was arrested and deported from the country, and when he tried to return back - he was killed. After these tragic events, Corazon was supported in her desire and attempts to assume the post of president. She successfully ruled the country, even despite numerous coup attempts (seven times in two years!).

Guyana also had its first female president. The US was her homeland, Jewish blood flowed in her veins, and the ideas of Marxism were in her head. Her name was Janet Jagan. She took office after the death of the head of state, her husband Cheddi Jagan. It is noteworthy that before that he was a dentist, and she was a nurse.

Presidents-women of the world often did not immediately start to follow the political path. Sometimes they were motivated by a parental example (Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia), sometimes journalistic activity (Ruth Dreyfus, Switzerland), but someone was consciously doing it, fighting for their rights (Tarja Halonen, Finland).

Active female presidents. Liberia

Helen Johnson-Sirleaf has been the head of state since 2005. She became the first representative of the weaker sex in such a high position among the heads of African countries. True, it is only the fool who calls her weak. The public Helen is known as a strong-willed and determined leader.

Helen graduated from Harvard, and then returned to Liberia and began working as an assistant to the Minister of Finance. In 1980 she herself took up this post. This period became quite difficult for her career, as the woman was accused of state embezzlement and deported from the country, where she could return only in 1997.

In the 1997 elections, Helen is a presidential candidate. The woman was able to gain only 10% of the vote. This defeat did not shake her faith in herself, and she made another attempt in 2005. Most voters decided that Johnson-Sirleaf is the new president of the country.

Chile

The only woman president in the history of his country is Michelle Bachelet. Today is the second term of her tenure as head of state. As for the first time (in 2006), it was elected by an absolute majority of votes.

The family Michelle suffered greatly from the dictatorship of Pinochet. Her father was put in prison for the fact that he, loyal to his military duty, remained on the side of the legitimate ruler. In conclusion, he died. Michelle and her mother were also arrested and tortured as traitors. Only by a miracle they managed to free themselves and leave the country. For some time they lived in Australia and the GDR.

In 1979, Bachelet returned home, received a doctorate at the University of Chile and worked for a long time in a children's hospital.

Her political career began in 1990, when she was engaged in counseling in the World Health Organization. Four years later she received a post in the ministry. In 2000, she became Minister of Health, and in 2002 (in addition) - Minister of Defense, which is very unusual for a woman.

During her first presidential term, pension reform and social guarantees for low-income families became a priority.

Entering the second term, Michel to the forefront put forward an educational reform, promising to make the education free. Also, one of the most important issues that the government has been working on since 2014 is the fight against inequality.

Bachelet is not married. She has three children.

Argentina

The woman-president of Argentina is Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. She has held this post since 2007.

Cristina's ancestors were emigrants from Spain and Volga Germans. She was born in La Plata in 1953. Politics was carried away while studying at the university, or rather - after getting to know the future husband Nestor, who was involved in the left radical movement.

She graduated from the Faculty of Law, after which the couple (married in 1975) went to Santa Cruz, where they opened a law firm.

Christina began her political career during her husband's election campaign in the late 1980s. He became governor of the province, and she became a member of the legislative assembly.

Actively supporting her husband in the presidential election, Kristina herself understood that she attracted much more public attention. Therefore, when the husband's term is over and he refused to run again, Christina put forward her candidacy.

In domestic politics, Cristina has carried out several significant laws, for example, the ban on smoking in public places, the legalization of same-sex marriages, the nationalization of private pension funds, and so on.

Foreign policy was aimed at stabilizing relations with other countries. However, with some to find understanding, the Argentine woman president could not. The United States and Britain are not always friendly to the Latin American leader. With the first state, the conflict happened in 2007 (the case of businessman Antonini Wilson), and with the second - in 2010, when the two countries could not find a solution to the issue of oil production by the British off the coast of Argentina (more precisely, the disputed Falkland Islands).

The woman-president of Argentina Cristina Fernandez differs from her colleagues not only in the way of thinking, but also in style. She is invariably on high heels and in magnificent dresses. More than once she claimed that shopping is her passion.

After the death of her husband in 2010, Christina gave herself a vow to mourn and since then appears in public only in black outfits.

Brazil

Women presidents of the Third World countries were often persecuted for their advanced views. This fate did not pass and the head of Brazil, Dilma Russef.

She was carried away by politics after 1964, when a military coup took place. The girl was only seventeen years old. But then genes made themselves felt, because Dilma's father, Peter, also engaged in politics in his homeland (in Bulgaria), but had to flee from there because of the threat of life.

For several years Dilma was underground, supporting armed organizations that are against the military dictatorship.

In 1970, she was detained and two years in detention. She had much to experience, even torture with electric shock. From prison she came out a completely different person, she moved away from terrible events, received an economist diploma, gave birth to a daughter from her husband (who also supports revolutionary groups).

Dilma became one of the founders of the Democratic Labor Party. But in the late 1990s, she went to a party of working people with more radical views. In 2003, she became energy minister under the president da Silva, and in 2005 headed her administration.

Five years later, Dilma nominated her candidacy for the post of head of state. In the pre-election campaign, she promised to solve a lot of problems, including:

• Carrying out of political and agrarian reforms;
• Support for racial quotas and freedom of religion;
• Legalization of marriages between same-sex people;
• The abolition of the death penalty;
• Abolition of the legalization of soft drugs.

The Republic of Korea

Women presidents are sometimes vulnerable in the face of danger. But Korea's leader Pak Kun Heh is probably ready for anything. She had to survive the tragic death of her parents. Her father, Pak Jong-hee, was president, and during one attempt on his life her mother was mortally wounded. After the death of the spouse, the head of the Republic laid the first lady's duties on his eldest daughter. Therefore Pak Kun Heh initially knew what the world of politics is, what it will have to face.

Five years after the death of her mother, she lost her father, who was treacherously murdered in 1979.

For several years, since 1998, she ran for parliament and got a deputy seat. But since 2004 she has been engaged exclusively in party activities.

In 2011, she became the leader of the Senary party, which won the parliamentary elections a year later. In the same year Pak Kun Hye won the presidential election.

Today, the Korean leader is sixty-three years old, and one can say with certainty that politics has become a matter of her life. She was never married, she has no children.

Croatia

For almost a year (since February 2015) the country is headed by Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovich. No one could have imagined that a woman president would grow up from a village girl. The US has become for her the starting point, but about everything in order.

Kolinda was born in a tiny village in Yugoslavia, from early childhood she had to experience all the hardships of rural life. Once she stated that no one in NATO, except her, can milk the cows. Probably, this is true.

But, despite the hardships of life, the girl had a very inquisitive mind. She learned the Croatian language, but her main victory was to receive a grandiose study in America. It was there that she mastered the English language fluently.

Colinda graduated from the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb and again went to the United States, becoming a grant student at the University of Washington. In addition, she was trained at Harvard University. After that, Colinda was invited to the Johns Hopkins University as a research associate.

Her political career, she began in 1992, when she became an adviser to the Foreign Ministry. All the 1990s she was engaged in embassy activity, supervising the North American direction. Was the deputy ambassador in Canada.

Since 2003, she has been a member of parliament and has been dealing with issues of European integration. And two years later she became Minister of Foreign Affairs. Priorities for Kolinda were the country's entry into the EU and NATO.

Three years (since 2008) was Croatia's ambassador to the United States.

In 2015, in the second round of elections, she won and became the president of Croatia.

Kolinda is married since 1996. There are two children in marriage.

Lithuania

Dalia Grybauskaite in 2014 was re-elected for a second term as Lithuanian President.

She was born in 1956 in Vilnius. According to her personal statements, her parents were simple hard workers. But the press published declassified information that her father, Polikarpas, belonged to the NKVD.

After graduation she worked a little to get some money. And then she went to Leningrad, where she entered the University. Zhdanov. She studied at the evening department, as she worked as a laboratory assistant in the fur factory during the day.

In 1983 she received a political diploma. In the same year became party and returned to Vilnius. She conducted lectures there on her subject specialty in the higher party school of the city.

In 1988, she defended her Ph.D. thesis in Moscow and remained at the Academy of Social Sciences.

Since Dalia was very fluent in English, she was sent from Lithuania to the United States, where she completed an internship at Georgetown University. For several years she worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then became an authorized representative of Lithuania in the United States.

After Lithuania's accession to the EU, Dalia held a post in the European Commission, not fulfilling her duties in 2009 in connection with the election campaign. Voters decide that the head of state should be a woman president. Russia did not like this very much, the relations of the countries have been cooling since.

Dahl is single, has no children.

Germany

The woman president of America may not appear in the sky soon, but the star of Angela Merkel shines since 2005. It was then that she became the head of her country.

Angela was born in 1954 in Hamburg. Her ancestors, both mother and father, were Poles.

Studying at school, Angela did not stand out, she was a modest and quiet girl. But she made great progress in studying mathematics and the Russian language. After graduation she went to Leipzig to enter the physics faculty of the university.

In her student years the girl participated in the activities of the Union of Free German Youth, and also married Wilrich Merkel, also a physics student.

After receiving diplomas, the couple left for Berlin, where their paths diverged. Angela began to work in the Academy of Sciences, later defended her thesis. In the service she met her current husband - Joachim Sauer.

The political career of Merkel began after the fall of the Berlin Wall and its entry into the party called "Democratic Breakthrough." In the early 1990s Angela changed her views and joined the Christian-Democratic Union. It was difficult for her to move up the career ladder, because she was the only one from East Germany. But on her side was Helmut Kohl, the leader of the party. In 1993, she leads the CDU on one of the lands of Germany.

A year later, in the elections to the Bundestag Angela receives the post of Minister of Environmental Protection. In 1998 she became General Secretary of the CDU.

Because of the financial scandal in 2000 from the post of the leader of the CDU went Schauble (and before that Kohl). By a majority of votes it was decided that Merkel would rise at the helm of the party.

The election of 2002 was won by Gerhard Schroeder, who, unlike Merkel, did not support Bush's policy in Iraq.

However, gradually the Social Democratic Party, standing at the helm of power, lost confidence. It was decided to call early elections for 2005. The SPD and the CDU scored almost the same number of votes (a difference of 1%). Five weeks between the parties were negotiated, as a result of which coalition agreements were reached, and Angela Merkel was recognized as the head of state.

Merkel is known for her pro-American position, and even the scandal with the CIA's wiretapping of her phones has not changed the state of affairs. As for domestic policy, according to experts, it is characterized by duality and big intentions, which are constantly in limbo.

Switzerland

A woman president of Belarus is a character from a fantastic film, but in Switzerland such a result of presidential elections is not uncommon. The current president - Simonetta Samouraga - the fifth woman in this position (in modern history).

After graduation she wanted to seriously study music, was an excellent pianist. Simonetta was trained in the US and Italy. Then she studied English and literature at the university.

Her policy was prompted by her work in the Consumer Rights Protection Fund. Since 1981, she represented the Social Democrats.

Simonetta was a member of the National Council and the Council of the Cantons. In 2010, she headed the Department of Justice and Police. And at the end of 2014, she was elected president of the country.

Simonetta is the wife of the writer - Lucas Hartman.