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Latvia's Iron Lady enters EU race with attack on male chauvinism
Ed Harris18 Nov 2009
A new face emerged today in the race to become the EU's first president as the former president of Latvia launched an attack on the selection process and challenged her male rivals to an open contest.
Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the first woman head of state in eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, said she was angry at suggestions that the post should go to a man.
Former prime minister Tony Blair is among the front-runners for the high-profile position and, like his rivals, who include the prime ministers of Belgium and the Netherlands, has been engaged in frantic behind-the-scenes lobbying.
European leaders will hold a summit tomorrow to choose the president and a foreign policy minister.
Mrs Vike-Freiberga, 71, often described as “formidable”, has declared her anger that the posts were being decided behind closed doors.
She has also let it be known that she is not happy at suggestions that the job should go to a man.
“Those people who say that should wash their mouths out with soap,” said Mrs Vike-Freiberga, often referred to as VVF.
“As far as I am concerned they are voicing the deepest and most objectionable prejudice against women.
“They are saying that we do not have qualified women around and I resent that. It is a lie and we should all protest against that because it implies that somehow talent was distributed only to those with one kind of chromosome.”
“It should be more transparent,” she told The Times, pledging to make openness part of her programme as president.
Mrs Vike-Freiberga fled across Europe from the front lines of the Second World War and then had a distinguished academic career.
She was elected president of Latvia in 1999 and re-elected in 2003, steering Latvia into the EU and Nato in 2004.
She is not fond of one of her nicknames: the Iron Lady, after Margaret Thatcher.
Reader views (3)
Oh how we need another Iron Lady, if only to put the greedy grasping czars of the EU on a very tight leash, only a woman of her vast experience can do this, and remember she actually does speak English unlike some of the other choices, and as the vast majority of the world speak this language, it surely is vital to actually speak it. After all the new President will have to deal with nearly half of the English speaking world.
I just hope that she gets in, can you imagine the greedy "Mac the Knife" (Mr Blair) getting it? Lorld help us if he did.
I rest my case ! Roberta.
- Roberta, Milton Keynes, England, 19/11/2009 12:21
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Maybe she will achieve in our new U.S.E. what Hillary Clinton couldn't achieve in the U.S.A. Apparently the former leader of this province has given up his fight to become federal leader.
- Phil Jones, London UK, 18/11/2009 10:15
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Related to Harpy Harman by any chance?
- Frank, Home Counties, England., 18/11/2009 09:00
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