Boasting about our leaders being women

In the USA and elsewhere, there are some people who brag about of our two leaders being women. Facts, however, would turn such ostentatious boasting into a vanity -- a personification of vainglory. Sir Edmund Spenser in "The Faerie Queene", calls them braggadocios. The braggers contend that Bangladesh (an overwhelming Muslim and male dominated society) is planet earth's only democratic country where two women becoming the PM and the OL are no small a feat.

The PM and OL being women do not raise the country's image a bit. If that would be case then we might as well offer all ministerial and diplomatic positions to women and make the country a fairy land of "Women's Kingdom". Our women are as gifted as our men. Therefore, to brag about our leaders being women manifests some sexist overtones. We are certainly proud that they broke the seemingly impregnable oddities of religious hypocrisies, social prejudices, and above all, male chauvinisms.

In 1960 Sirivamo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka became the world's first female Premier and in 1974 Isabel Perón of Argentina became the first woman President. In 1999, Sweden became the first country to have more female ministers than male (11 women and 9 men). Among the 191 UN member states and some outside ones, there are 5 female Presidents and six Prime Ministers.

The 5 female Presidents: Finland (Tarja Halonen, lawyer), Ireland (Mary McAleese, lawyer), Latvia (Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Ph.D Psychology), The Philippines (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Ph.D Economics) and Sri Lanka (Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumarantunga, M.A Pol. Science).

The six Prime Ministers: Bangladesh (Khaleda Zia, HSC), New Zealand (Helen Clark, M.A. Economics), Mozambique (Luisa Dias Diogo, M.A. Economics), Ukraine (Yuliya Tymoshenko, Ph.D in economics) and São Tomée Princípe (Maria do Carmo Silveira, advanced degree in economics). In October 2005, Angela Merkel (Ph.D in Physics) became the first woman Chancellor of Germany. All foreign leaders have served their country in cabinet or top policy making positions for many years prior to being elevated to the highesr seat of state power.

It was the political expediency of the respective party, not the indispensability of their leadership for the country, which dragged them into politics; one lost a famous father and other lost a husband -- both were Presidents when assassinated. Khaleda's high jump from being a housewife to country's Prime Minister is indeed a meteoric rise. In addition to father-daughter dynamics, Hasina has some early experience with student politics. Much to her credit, she served as parliamentary member prior to becoming the opposition leader in the House and then Prime Minister in 1996.

A country's leader does not need to have a university degree, although advanced education is an asset beyond measure. But the position of leadership requires impeccable mental capacity and an indomitable desire to acquire skills to synthesise why leaders --

· Need the knowledge and understanding of the functions of political leaderships, major duties in public service, and limitations of a position of leadership in a democracy, and ethical dilemmas that routinely confront political leaders;

· Must have respect for the rights of others, ability to work with others, reliability or dependability, courage, honesty, ability to be fair, willingness to acquire leadership knowledge and skills;

· Must appreciate the role of "opposition", the role of media, and the voices of dissent. Should hold regular press conferences and make governance as transparent as possible.

· Put the interests of the people ahead of personal and party interest;

· Must not behave incoherently once their roles are switched from PM to OL and vice-versa;

Leadership attributes are genetically disposed but can be harnessed through education and experience. Blema Steinberg (Ref. :Political Psychology, Vol. 22, 2001) examined if birth order, sex of siblings, and parent-children dynamics have any pattern in accession to leadership positions. She found strong evidence that first-born male are overrepresented as compared with later-born siblings.

Two other hypotheses tested also confirm that first-born women, like first-born men, are overrepresented among political leaders; that first-born women are overrepresented among female political leaders as compared with their numbers in a larger sample population; and that fewer female political leaders have an older brother than would be expected to occur in a larger sample population.

Steinberg's study on parent-daughter dynamics suggests a possible explanation for the success of women who achieve senior-level positions of political power. These findings are consistent with Hasina's political background while Khaleda's (who is neither a first born, nor the daughter of a political leader) accession to leadership would not, in all likelihood, have happened, if her husband was not assassinated.

With a university degree, years of political grooming, and father-daughter dynamics, Hasina did not impress too many people that she is politically a savor vivre and an astute leader. She had all the prerequisites for accession to the position of a great leader but her straight talking blunt manner and lack of confidence on close associates (although, for good reasons) became her Achilles' heel.

We have to believe that both ladies are smarter than the people who surround them. This observation is based on the notion that the "Shepard must be smarter than the sheep". Unfortunately, their pretensions of "not seeing what every one else sees" and "not hearing what every one else hears" has caused a worldwide concern for Bangladesh becoming a "failed state".

Among the glaring statistics, Bangladesh has been ranked (in parenthesis) world's most corrupt country with Human Development index (139) and Growth Competitiveness Index (110) among the lowest matching only the poorest African nations. Failed State Index ranking of 17 (Pakistan 28, Malaysia 74, India 76), is within the top 20 riskiest countries.

Sustained scoring of lowest Corruption Index alone is enough to divulge everything else inside out; all other indices and statistics simply reinforce where the country is heading. Economists view corruptions and the concomitant inefficiency are the reasons why in an UN report presented at the UN meetings on September 14 -16, 2005 (attended by the PM and other world leaders), Bangladesh has achieved fifth worst ranking (only next to Ethiopia, Rwanda, Niger and Madagascar) in failing to reduce poverty alleviation. The progression of poverty alleviation at 0.52 percent well below the target of 2.2 per cent may simply be a natural growth unrelated to any government initiatives.

Corruption germinates from absence of the rule of law, which almost always refers to the party functionaries. In such an environment, political killings can go scot free, presidential clemency for convicted murderers and funeral attendance and offer of wreaths on the coffin of a alleged murderer by the PM become political power play; freedom of press becomes a hostage to ruling party's whims; journalists work under timorous and tight-penned conditions for fear of repeat of retributions; minorities pass sleepless nights agonising over the fear of ethnic cleansing or religious persecutions.

Based on Freedom House's 2004 Legal System and Property Rights Index, rule of law index dipped from 5.0 to 3.2; judicial independence dipped from 3.7 to 3.2; impartial courts index dipped from 4.2 to 2.8; integrity of the legal system index dipped from 7.0 to 3.3. These and all other worsening statistics is discourssing FDI and straining relationships with WB, IMF and all developing partners worldwide. The current move to politicize the judiciary, specially the higher courts will only worsen the already denigrated legal system.

According to the WHO, diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, asthma, and common diseases are killing thousands of poor people every year. Nearly 75 million people are living in shanty towns, without clean drinking water, or sanitation; only 11.2 percent live in concrete houses and nearly 70 percent have no proper housing. In rural areas, 10 percent of landowners hold 50 percent of the land, and 40 percent of small farmers own just 2 percent of arable land.

Reflecting their frustrations about the country's degradations even the BNP's grassroots leaders in their October 15-16 meetings made very poignant accusations about the party's gaudy bosses. Some of the accusations are: "If the ministers and the lawmakers eat up everything, what will be left for the other leaders and workers?" "The ministers will leave the country if the party fails to win the next election, but we will have to stay and face the adverse situation." "Our ministers and senior leaders are too busy with their own affairs. They must rid themselves of such tendency." (DS, October 17).

The continued worsening of social, economic and rule of law coupled with BNP's flirting with religious extremists in a political alliance has transformed a moderate country into a menacing playground of fundamentalists' movements culminating in the August 17 nationwide synchronised bomb explosions of a surreal cinéma vérité.

It is impossible to know whether the country would have been better off if the two leaders were both men instead. The irony is that since independence the party in power literally has put the government up for sale in a stench of cronyism with sale and purchase of political favours. All the chief executives of the country have encircled themselves with squarely incompetent, utterly dishonest, and shallowly educated political appointees who paved personal interest ahead of country's interest whilst the leaders gave a deaf ear, a blind eye, and a tacit acquiescence.

A fair question to ask now, "Is the country and the people are better off to-day than 14 years ago when the two women became leaders". If the answer is yes, then you may join the braggadocios wherever they are. And for the rest of us, we are proud at all times to be the children of an evergreen landscape of ravines and rivers regardless of the ruptures and ravages our politicians have been inflicting on it.

Dr Abdullah A Dewan is Professor of economics, Eastern Michigan University, USA.