The Hindu Business Line : Draft Condi, draft Hillary!

THIS column wishes even-handedly to press both the Republicans and the Democrats of the US to launch pronto a campaign to draft Dr Condoleeza Rice, the first black female Secretary of State, and Ms Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and, at present, the popular Democratic Senator from New York, as their respective candidates for the presidency in 2008.

("Draft" is a procedure peculiar to the US, whereby the rank-and-file of a political party rise in a tsunami-like upsurge thrusting the nomination on a person of their choice, regardless of his/her willingness, instead of, as is normally the case, of a candidate going after the nomination. General Dwight Eisenhower is the only example so far of a person "drafted" and swept into the White House in 1952.)

My demand gains added piquancy when it is remembered that at least 40 countries, the more prominent among them being Argentina, Bangladesh, China, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK, covering a wide spectrum of political and electoral systems, have had women as heads of State/government, in some instances on more than one occasion.

It is puzzling that the US, obsessed with so many other catchwords like democracy, human rights and so on, is letting the rest of the world score a point over it in this vital respect of maintaining equality between men and women in elective offices.

Coming to think of it, in the US, women's participation in politics was stymied until 1920, the year in which women there got the right to vote for the first time.

Despite the political awareness of all sections of the population and a strong feminist movement insistent on gender justice, the percentage of women elected to the US Congress has not been high.

In the present Congress too, out of 100 Senators and 435 Members of the House of Representatives, only 14 and 66 respectively are women.

Both Dr Rice and Ms Hillary Clinton have compelling qualifications — brains, charisma and political savvy — for being elected President, and will make, I am sure, a better job of it than their male predecessors.

So, on with it, party faithful, stop not until the goal is reached!

B.S. Raghavan

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