Featur e Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez waving to supporters on Election Day in 2007.
risk becoming perceived as rivals by other ambitious po- litical actors who will attack and attempt to discredit them. A once-popular first lady may quickly find herself tainted by association with the dirty game of politics. “A first lady is like a beacon,” says Dario Mendoza, a Mexican political consultant who has advised a number of Latin American first ladies. “She can cast a favorable glow on her husband and his projects. However, if she tries to direct her light onto herself, it can become blinding.” Few women, first ladies or not, find it easy to succeed
in Latin American politics. This is exemplified by Mexico, where gender quotas designed to ensure that women have at least some representation in government have been eas- ily circumvented by men. Political parties in the country sign women up as candidates for Congress to fulfill the quotas, but just a few days after the congresswomen are sworn in, they are asked to resign for a male surrogate, who occupies the seat for the rest of the term. These placeholder women have become known as “Adelitas” after the women who did hard work in the barracks and fields of the Mexi- can Revolution. So, are there any primeras damas who have been able to
parlay the affection of the people into a position of real power? As mentioned above, Eva Perón attained an un- precedented level of power for a Latin American woman of her time due to her influence over pro-Perón unions of Argentina. She became the primary connection between her husband, President Juan Domingo Perón, and the low- er class base of the Perónist Party, called “los descamisados” (“the shirtless ones”), which worshipped her. Though trade union leaders urged her to serve as her husband’s running mate in 1951, she declined due to failing health and op- position from the military. Some other first ladies have successfully made the leap from the passive role of the president’s wife to running for
38 Campaigns & Elections | Canadian Edition
president themselves. The most remark- able recent example is Argentina’s Presi- dent Cristina Fernandez, former President Nestor Kirchner’s widow, who was elected to succeed her husband in 2007. There are a number of explanations for Fernandez’s success. First, she had a substantial political career before she became first lady, having served three terms as a senator and one term as a national representative. (Indeed, at one point when she was a senator, her popularity was generally understood to have exceeded that of her husband, who was governor of Santa Cruz province at the time.) “She was not known as, ‘The wife of…’,” says Silvio Waisbord, an Argentinean political commu- nications pundit and associate professor at George Washington University. “She was an important senator and quite visible before becoming first lady.”
Second, she appealed to voters because she promised to
continue her husband’s policies while taking a less con- frontational approach to the opposition—and benefited tremendously from the boost in name recognition she gained as first lady. Third, she followed in a tradition of po- litically active Argentinean first ladies, including Eva Perón and Hilda “Chiche” Gonzalez de Duhalde, whose husband, Eduardo Duhalde, was president from 2002 to 2003, and who served as the head of the national council of social welfare during his term and is currently a senator from Buenos Aires province. Because of this tradition, Fernan- dez’s entrance into politics was met with less resistance than it might have been elsewhere in Latin America.
Because she followed in a tradition of politically active Argentinean first ladies, Fernandez’s entrance into politics was met with less resistance than it might have been elsewhere in Latin America.
Indeed, some first ladies who have attempted to enter politics in their own right have encountered a significant backlash. Take for example Marta Sahagun, the wife of for- mer Mexican President Vicente Fox, who was his spokes- person before they got married. Once she was first lady, Sahagun got involved in public life through a foundation she created called Vamos Mexico (Let’s Go, Mexico), whose purpose was to help build a network including the private sector to fight extreme poverty in the country. Though this endeavor fit in with the sort of social welfare activism com-
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