DO cry for Argentina

Argentinians have a lot about which to cry (or maybe laugh). In their general elections held on Sunday, October 28 there were three women among the fourteen candidates running for president. In the USA there is a huge debate over whether a female candidate can make it to the presidency, Hillary being the only one trying to do so at the moment. But imagine the difficulty of an Argentine feminist having to pick among the three. Of course, with eleven male candidates to pick from, an Argentine voter may have an easier choice as to whether or not to vote for a woman: should Hillary be the Democratic candidate in the U.S. election in November 2008, some voters who would be inclined not to vote for a woman may choose her anyway because they could never bring themselves to vote for whoever the Republican candidate might be (their only alternatives being to not vote at all or to vote for some minor party candidate).

Who are the three women candidates? There is an interesting similarity with the U.S. here--one is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the wife of the outgoing president, Néstor Kirchner (a Bill and Hillary act). She is 54 years old and was elected in 2005 to the country's senate. The other two are Elisa Carrió, age 50, a member of the house of deputies, and Vilma Ripoll, age 53, a nurse and a member of the Buenos Aires city council.

Should one of these women win the election, she would be the first elected female president of the country. (Eva Perón was put into office as president by her husband Juan Perón in 1974 to follow him; he had not gained that office in a free election.)

An interesting sidelight: All Argentine registered voters age 18 and older are required to vote in these elections (exceptions are those physically disabled, mentally incompetent, or incarcerated). This information, and all that in this posting, is from the 10/28/07 edition of the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarín. The paper doesn't say what the penalty is for violation of this law.

Women as presidential candidates is not something new in South America. When I was in Chile in April 2005 there was a hot debate in the primary elections between two women candidates; one of them, Michelle Bachelet, was ultimately elected as president later that year.