All in The Family Women leaders in the Third World owe their rise more to male dynasties than to militant feminism

By Howard G. Chua-Eoan

The images still stir the spirit: multitudes, swathed in yellow, sweeping Corazon Aquino to power in the Philippines; Benazir Bhutto campaigning atop truck caravans in Pakistan; Violeta Chamorro, in a wheelchair, toppling Nicaragua's haughty Sandinista regime. In the past decade, no man has come to power as dramatically and as spectacularly as these women. For feminists everywhere, the rise of Aquino, Bhutto and Chamorro seemed to augur huge steps forward for societies usually characterized by unrelenting machismo. The images, however, were misleading.

Behind each woman in power was a powerful man or an influential political dynasty. In their election campaigns, Aquino and Chamorro constantly reminded voters that they were carrying on the work of their deceased husbands. Aquino is the widow of Benigno Aquino Jr., Ferdinand Marcos' most bitter rival, who was assassinated in August 1983; Chamorro is the widow of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, the newspaper publisher whose murder in 1978 led to the downfall of the brutal Anastasio Somoza regime. During her 1988 election campaign, Bhutto never ceased alluding to the legacy of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was executed in 1979 by the military government she was then fighting to succeed. She titled her autobiography Daughter of Destiny. Ousted in a constitutional coup in August, Bhutto may once again raise the rhetoric of martyrdom and rally her followers to the banner of her descent.

Unlike Britain's Margaret Thatcher or Israel's Golda Meir, Aquino, Bhutto and Chamorro claimed power not through proven political skills but on the strength and symbolism of their family ties. For much of the Third World, the idea of the nation-state has not evolved too far from the idea of kingdoms; rulers are still heads of extended tribes or vast families, rather than chief executives of the machinery of government. Politics very often pits clan against clan, all the way from Machiavellian patriarchs to the wives and daughters, whose chief duty is still procreation and the maintenance of the tribe's hearth. When chaos and violence rob a family of vigorous male representation, its senior women then pursue the clan's goals, much as queen regents or princesses of the blood would do in monarchies. As extensions of their high-born families, the women are allowed to domesticate crises and restore order to the national "home."

Political succession by pedigree, however, by no means precludes women from brilliantly exercising power. For most of history, it was the only path by which women could come to rule. The pattern is not alien to the West, where potentates of genius included daughters of kings, such as Elizabeth I of England; their widows, such as Catherine the Great of Russia; and their mothers, such as Eleanor of Aquitaine.

In the 20th century, the most successful female dynast has been Indira Gandhi of India, daughter of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Over a span of 16 years, Gandhi proved herself the most formidable Prime Minister India has ever had, masterly melding the charisma of her family with the subcontinent's rich religious images of motherhood and successfully passing her office to her son Rajiv. Six years after her assassination, she is still idolized. Says Sudhir Kakar, an Indian psychoanalyst: "She is looked upon as the sacrificing mother of the joint family." Born to privilege, Gandhi believed she was born to rule as well. She once quoted Robert Frost to Rajiv: "How hard it is to keep from being king, when it's in you and in the situation."

Though they have yet to match Gandhi's political acumen, Aquino, Chamorro and Bhutto share with the late Indian Prime Minister the same aristocratic sense of destiny. No other politicians -- certainly no men -- were capable of leading their countries at the time of their ascendancy. Aquino and Chamorro united quarrelsome opposition groups. Only Bhutto had the charisma to overcome the puritanical appeal of Mohammed Zia ul-Haq's Islamic regime. But winning was the easy part. Ruling has proved problematic.

Of the three women, Chamorro is the epitome of the contemporary queen regent: benign, motherly and devout. As President, she is still more likely to open her mouth in prayer than in political double-talk. Showing up for a fiesta at the town of Juigalpa, Chamorro was asked by the local parish priest to say a few words. She replied, "What better words than the Lord's Prayer" and proceeded to lead the crowd in the Paternoster. With just a high school education, she leans for major decisions on what she calls her "sixth sense."

But Nicaraguans see in her life a reflection of the traumas their country has gone through. Dona Violeta, as she is always called, lost a husband to political violence, and her family was split along political lines: two of her children are ardent Sandinistas and two are just as ardent anti-Sandinistas. Yet through it all, Chamorro has kept her family together. Says Emilio Alvarez, a longtime friend of the Chamorro family's: "If she could reconcile her own family, she could do it for the country as well." Nicaragua remains in severe economic crisis, but so far Chamorro has stymied the Sandinistas with her motherly style. She ended the contra war in less than a month and quelled riots without bloodshed. "The Sandinistas are used to violence and confrontation," says Alvarez. "They didn't know how to react."

But symbolism and persona are not enough to rehabilitate devastated nations, as Aquino has found out. In a land of political victims, she came to power as the most famous victim of Philippine dictator Marcos, who is popularly assumed to have ordered the murder of her husband. Many saw her as a veritable mater dolorosa. As devout a Roman Catholic as Chamorro, Aquino was irreproachable at the beginning of her presidency. The fearsome insurgency, led by the communist New People's Army, lost steam in the face of her saintliness. The military plotters who threatened to overthrow her were seen as thugs.

Aquino knew she would have to be more than a symbol. To those who would have her be "Mother of the Nation," Aquino said, "I will remain a mother to my children, but I intend to be Chief Executive of this nation. And for the male chauvinists in the audience, I intend as well to be the Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the Philippines." But inexperience and the chronic fractiousness of Philippine politics have frittered away her advantages. Today many Filipinos, while still fond of Aquino, would welcome a coup that would replace her dithering administration with a strong, perhaps even authoritarian, regime.

A similar disaffection with Bhutto muted criticism of her ouster. Educated at Harvard and Oxford, Bhutto nevertheless seemed to govern Pakistan as she would have a feudal kingdom. Her government appeared to operate largely by petition; she bartered Cabinet seats for increased support in Parliament, and she was unwilling to allow the army, which she distrusted, to interfere in the violent politics of her power base in the province of Sind. While a cordon sanitaire of friends and relatives kept her insulated from critics, she made sure her public appearances received immense media coverage. Like Aquino's, Bhutto's reputation as restorer of democracy and avenger of her father could not withstand her government's weakness.

For the moment, Chamorro has buffers. Nicaraguans can blame political turmoil on Sandinista subterfuge and hyperinflation on the previous regime and, perhaps, on Chamorro's son-in-law Antonio Lacayo, who runs the government. But Aquino and Bhutto have spent much of their popular support. Unable to end Pakistan's ethnic strife, Bhutto has fallen, and her match-made husband Asif Zardari has been accused of corruption. With each threat of a coup, the Philippine economy falters, and Aquino's grip grows shakier.

The inability to resolve crises has been the downfall of male leaders. The popular backlash against their widows and daughters may prove equally cruel. What greater faithlessness can there be than the mother of the nation failing her people? Having come to power as emblems of national emotions, women leaders like Aquino, Bhutto and Chamorro remain at the mercy of those emotions. Their original strength lay in their symbolism, but without substance, their legacies are bound to vanish.

With reporting by Sandra Burton/Hong Kong, Meenakshi Ganguly/New Delhi and Jan Howard/Managua