4. Sonia Gandhi

Forbes: The Most Powerful Women in Politics 2012

Sonia Gandhi was unanimously re-elected President of India's Congress Party for the fourth time in 2010, making her the longest serving chief in the party's history. This July, the Congress Party's candidate, former Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, was declared the country's president, a largely ceremonial position. Born in Italy, Gandhi's connection to India began when she married Rajiv Gandhi, the heir to the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty in 1968. For two decades, Gandhi played the quiet role of a political wife and only accepted a leadership role after his 1991 assassination. She refused to serve as prime minister when her party won national elections in 2004 and 2009, instead delegating the role to Manmohan Singh. Lauded for overseeing heavy economic growth, she is also criticized for tolerating political corruption and failing to forge connections with India's fastest-growing demographic--younger voters. Gandhi is an avid scholar of the arts, and holds a degree in oil painting conservation. In July she gave her party's support to prime minister Singh's much-anticipated reform initiative for the country, which will include building infrastructure, increasing energy potential and managing food, fuel and fertilizer in the crowded nation.
(AP Photo)

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The Most Powerfu... For the second year running, three of the top five women on Forbes' list of the world’s 100 most powerful women are politicians. In the list as a whole, 19 politicians hold court, including eight heads of state. It wasn’t a U.S. election year, which explains the exit of the Tea Party candidates who wielded considerable power in 2011, but overall more than half of the political returnees from last year’s list shot considerably up the rankings.

While the 2012 list has a strong showing for female politicians, the big news is that looking forward, 2013 could be a banner year. While there isn’t a female candidate for President in the U.S., there are a number women running for election around the world—from South Korea to Afghanistan– who could join these ranks in the months ahead.
(Getty/AP)

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10. Julia Gillar... With two years under her belt as the first female prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard oversees a population of 22 million and a GDP of $917 billion. This year, the Labor Party leader, who became an Australian citizen in 1974, has struggled with rising energy bills and illegal immigration: waves of asylum-seekers from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Malaysia. After two boats sank en route from Indonesia to Australia in June, killing at least 94 people, the two countries reached an agreement to better police their citizens and borders. "I welcome the co-operation we have with Indonesia on people smuggling, including Indonesia's law enforcement efforts against people-smuggling syndicates," said Gillard. The 50-year-old PM, the first to forgo attending the Olympic games since Sydney hosted in 2000, has never married or had children.
(AP Photo)

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9. Queen Elizabe... Queen Elizabeth has been commemorating her 60th diamond Jubilee anniversary with parades, parties and by making peace throughout the realm. In June she shook hands with former IRA commander Martin McGuinness during a visit to Northern Ireland that was seen as a symbol of significant easing of tensions in British-Irish relations. In lighter but similarly symbolic news the iconic clock tower of Britain's Parliament building--widely, though incorrectly, called Big Ben--was renamed in her honor this summer. It will be known as Elizabeth Tower. Forbes estimates her personal net worth around $500 million but as a royal she's able to live well beyond her means--her main residence is valued at roughly $5 billion. HRH is on-track to becoming the longest reigning monarch in over 1,200 years of British History (her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria who reigned for 63 years and 216 days) in September, 2015.
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8. Aung San Suu ... While Aung San Suu Kyi resists being called an icon, it's easy to see why the leader of Burma's pro-democracy movement has been internationally regarded as such in 2012. Less than two years after being released from nearly two decades under house arrest, Suu Kyi was elected to Burma's parliament in an election where Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy took 43 of 45 open seats. In June, Suu Kyi was finally able to deliver her acceptance speech for her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, part of the same European tour in which she became the first women other than the Queen to address both houses of the British parliament. Suu Kyi has been an international pro-democracy figure since founding the National League of Democracy in 1988, leading nonviolent resistance against Burma's military junta. After the NLD swept Burmese elections in 1990, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest instead of assuming the position of Prime Minister, with the election's results nullified. International attention remained on Suu Kyi's through her imprisonment, exerting pressure on Burma for her release and democratic elections, and continues to buzz today as she travels the world today.
(AP Photo)

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7. Cristina Fern... The second-term Argentine president caused a stir this summer when she approved advertisements for Argentina's Olympic team that disputed British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. Tensions between the Olympic host nation and Argentina have been increasing since Fernandez de Kirchner renewed her country's claim to the islands on June 13th, the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War. Her predecessor and husband, Nestor Kirchner, served as president before her and was expected to run again until he died unexpectedly in 2010. Under her administration the economy sharply grew--the GDP is up 34% since 2007 at $709 billion--pension and child welfare benefits increased and the poverty rate has fallen steadily.
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6. Janet Napolit... The first female head of the Department of Homeland Security, a position she took after serving as governor of Arizona from 2003-2009, Napolitano is at the helm of the third largest department in U.S. politics.The past twelve months have been put Homeland Security in the spotlight, particularly in the glare of June's SCOTUS decisions on Arizona immigration policy and Attorney General Eric Holder's "Fast & Furious" debacle. Voted Most Likely to Succeed in high school in 1975, Napolitano has a history in local and state-level politics but says moving to the national stage was a natural progression. "You've got to widen your scope and shift priorities," she says, "to keep the nation's borders secure."
(AP Photo)

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5. Michelle Obam... More popular than her husband in this oh-so-important election year, Michelle Obama's positive approval ratings register at 66% while POTUS's term average has hovered just below 50%. The first lady keeps a high profile with her mission to end childhood obesity, her commitment to military families and her stylish fashion picks. This year the Harvard Law School grad led the U.S. Olympic delegation in July's opening ceremony in London, penned a coffee table book, 'American Grown,' about growing veggies and tomatoes on the South Lawn of the White House and waged a war on sugary fruit juices as a part of her Let's Move! initiative. She's made more public appearances this year than usual--not surprisingly the campaign is using the Mrs. as a tool to widen the gender gap over Romney--appearing as a judge on an episode of Bravo's "Top Chef," chatting with the ladies of "The View" and joking with funny guys Jimmy Fallon and Jon Stewart.
(AP Photo)

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4. Sonia Gandhi Sonia Gandhi was unanimously re-elected President of India's Congress Party for the fourth time in 2010, making her the longest serving chief in the party's history. This July, the Congress Party's candidate, former Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, was declared the country's president, a largely ceremonial position. Born in Italy, Gandhi's connection to India began when she married Rajiv Gandhi, the heir to the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty in 1968. For two decades, Gandhi played the quiet role of a political wife and only accepted a leadership role after his 1991 assassination. She refused to serve as prime minister when her party won national elections in 2004 and 2009, instead delegating the role to Manmohan Singh. Lauded for overseeing heavy economic growth, she is also criticized for tolerating political corruption and failing to forge connections with India's fastest-growing demographic--younger voters. Gandhi is an avid scholar of the arts, and holds a degree in oil painting conservation. In July she gave her party's support to prime minister Singh's much-anticipated reform initiative for the country, which will include building infrastructure, increasing energy potential and managing food, fuel and fertilizer in the crowded nation.
(AP Photo)

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3. Dilma Roussef... Dilma Rousseff made news when she was elected to lead Brazil--Latin America's largest economy--in October 2011, but in many ways the election result was not a surprise. As the first female Chief of Staff under reformist President Lula da Silva, appointed in 2005, she was widely expected to be his successor to continue the Workers Party's economic policies set in motion during his term. It is her rise to that post that is remarkable. She cut her teeth in politics as a student involved in Latin America's labor politics. A member of two radical groups - Colina and VAR Palmares - Rousseff flitted between towns, chased by law enforcement officials and was eventually arrested in 1970 for alleged involvement in drug and weapons trafficking. She was jailed for two years. In 2001, when she was appointed Minister of Energy, Rousseff began to alter her views towards a more a pragmatic and now favors state control of most industries. This Spring, in an attempt to reverse a slowdown of the country's economy, the President accelerated an array of stimulus projects throughout the country which were met with great fanfare by her constituents. A June poll put Rousseff's approval rating at 77%.
(AP Photo)

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2. Hillary Clint... In keeping with her reputation as a no-nonsense diplomat, Clinton's spending her final months as Secretary of State as far from the campaign trail as possible given the explicit need to avoid making her position appear political. It's customary for the Secretary of State to stay out of election season. But the past twelve months have been major for the former Presidential candidate. She's navigated treacherous territory when WikiLeaks released sensitive diplomatic cables in November, urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to hand over his power and leave his country and recently warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to chart a different course than his militant father (read: "feed country" should outrank "build nukes" on the nation's to-do list). Oh--and she went viral: the tumblr blog "Texts From Hillary" became an popular meme in April. Clinton has steadfastly said that she plans to move out of public life at the end of the year, but supporters are breathless over the possibility of a 2016 Presidential bid.
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1. Angela Merkel The world's most powerful woman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been called the "Iron Lady" of Europe, remaining steadfast during the continued crisis in the euro zone. Even as Spain and Italy faced deepening recessions, she and French President Francois Hollande vowed to do everything in their power to preserve the 17-country European Union, and pushed through Germany's aid package to Spain's struggling banks. Merkel also called on international leaders to renew the Kyoto agreement, a commitment to reduce greenhouse gases that she helped ratify as Germany's environmental minister in the 1990s. She has been chancellor since 2005, and her recent public approval ratings soared to near 70%--a good sign leading into the general election in the fall of 2013.
(AP Photo)

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The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women
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The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast.
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