Asia's high profile powerful women have often been considered by their country's poor as their saviour, as the ones who will tear down corrupt institutions and modernize the country, bringing economic prosperity for all and allowing the poor to break the cycle of poverty which often entraps families for generations in destitute circumstances.
Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, Yinluck Shinawtra in Thailand, Megawati Sukarnoputri in Indonesia and Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the Philippines. All had an aura of fairness, honesty, held the promise of change for the good and a clean government when they assumed power for the first time. With the exception of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar who has not held official power, all the female leaders of their countries failed to live up to promise and hope instilled on them by their constituents also falling into the trap of corrupt government politics themselves, achieving nothing for their people and country.
But these women were portrayed as something they were/are not: fighters for the common people. The Asian Power Women all belong(ed) to their country's power pinnacle class.
Benazir Bhutto was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former prime minister and president of Pakistan and founder of the Pakistan People's Party that Benazir Bhutto led from the age of 29. Benazir Bhutto was Pakistan's prime minister from 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996. Benazir Bhutto's paternal grandfather was Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto. Originally of Sindh, Shah Nawaz Bhutto became the prime minister of the princely state of Junagadh in what is now Gujarat State in India. During his services Shah Nawaz Bhutto had been given large tracts of land in Sindh Province and after the partition of British India into India and Pakistan, he moved his family there, being one of the wealthiest and therefore most influential, land owners.
Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San (real name: Htein Lin, born on February 13, 1915), founder of the modern Burmese army, of Burma's Communist Party and one of the negotiators of Burma's independence in 1947. Aung San was the son of a lawyer and born into a family active in the anti-British resistance movement, dating back to the attachment of Burma to the British Empire in 1886. Aung San Suu Kyi comes therefore from a very well established political family.
As a small group of tourists found out in December 2011, when stepping on a boat to float down the Irrawaddy River surrounded by the UNESCO-classified temples of Pagan. The boat guide pointed out two huge buildings arising along the river shore, in the middle of nowhere. According to the guide, the pompuous villa belonged to a family member of Aung San Suu Kyi and the other high-rise building was being constructed by an army general. When the tourists asked the guide what he thought of all this, he shrugged his shoulders, acknowledging the fact that only the rich and connected can engage in projects like this.
Yingluck Shinawatra who became Thailand's (first female) prime minister in 2011 is the youngest sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, one of Thailand's wealthiest people and a former prime minister himself. His third time in office ended on 19 September 2006 when a military coup d'état ended civilian rule. The Shinawatra family appears not to belong to the traditional power classes of Thailand. Thaksin has always promoted an image of himself as an outsider, a self-made man with no ties to the old upper classes. He became prime minister on a platform of some populist policies e.g. subsidies for rice farmers in the northeast of the country. His enormous popularity among Thailand's common people, based on creating awareness that they have a voice and rights too, allowed him to create a formidable personal power base, totally separate from the traditional power classes: the nobility, the armed forces and the Teochiu business elite.
But Thaksin's image is a PR exercise, aimed at attracting the vote of Thailand's increasingly vocal working class. The Shinawatra family is Hakka and not Teochiu as the majority of Thailand's ethnic Chinese population. The Teochiu run Thailand's economy and the Hakka Shinawatra family are not part of this inner circle. But this does not mean that they are outsiders. As detailed in article Thaksin: from Rich to Richer, the Shinawatra family has very well established ties with Thailand's aristocracy, dating back to the reign of Rama IV in middle of the 19th century and has been part of Thailand's power elite for many generations.
Thaksin Shinawatra's political agenda was and still is aimed at gaining power at the expense of the Thailand's traditional ruling classes. This will also support their commercial interests. Yingluck Shinawatra is Thaksin's replacement but she has her family's and brother's interests at heart. Her government's policies of supporting Thailand's poor and working class are means to an end (i.e. creating and cementing a political power base) and not based on a heartfelt desire to create a more just society.
Corazon Aquino was the Philippines's first democratically elected president after the removal of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Corazon Aquino was the widow of senator Benigno Aquino Jr., Marcos' political opponent who was murdered on Marcos' instructions upon his return to the Philippines from exile in the USA in 1983. Corazon Aquino became the leader and the public face of the people's revolution against Marcos that drove him from office. With her friendly and motherly appearance she became to many Filipino's the mother of the nation who only had the best interests of poor and common Filipino's at heart. And as a mother she would protect her children from poverty and abuse and create a country in which all people could have a decent living and the rich would not treat the poor as their servants without any rights.
But Corazon Aquino's maiden name is Cojuangco which is one of the Philippine's richest families, with enormous commercial interests and political cloud dating back to colonial times. The family is one of the largest land owners of the country and as such any land reform transferring land ownership to poor farmers is directly opposed to the Cojuangco's family interests. In all fairness Corazon Aquino did implement a radical land reform programme which affected also the Hacienda Luisita, a 6,435 hectare sugar cane plantation and one of the largest estates in the country and owned by the Cojuangco family. In the end Corazon Aquino was not able to beat her own family and establish land reform on their own plantation. Since 2004 the Cojuangco/Aquino family is even engaged in a direct battle with its plantation workers which has involved strikes, blockades and even lethal confrontation.
One of Corazon Aquino's successors, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was also swept to power on the wings of popular. Originally a Vice President of the Philippines under then President Joseph Estrada (1998 - 2001) she turned against him when he came under investigation and eventually impeachment for massive corruption. During the so-called EDSA II revolution of January 17-20, the popular revolt against Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was sworn in as president. She promised a continuation of the investigations against Joseph Estrada, clean government and a fight against corruption.
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is the daughter of Diosdado Macapagal, president of the Philippines in the years 1961-1965. The Macapagal family belong to the Philippine's traditional political power structure together with the Magsaysay and Aquino families. Maintaining traditional power structures is in their interest, not political reform and clean government. Gloria Macapagal was eventually also confronted with corruption charges against herself focussing on election fraud in 2004, as well as her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, who supposedly abbused his position of "First Gentleman" for his own financial gain.
This article appeared earlier in e-magazine Business Trends Asia
