BANGKOK, 8 August 2011 – The TIME Magazine has listed incoming Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra one of the 12 female leaders of the world alongside German Prime Minister Angela Merkel and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
TIME Magazine gave a brief detail of Ms Yingluck including her education from Kentucky State University in public administration, her experience in business management, emergence into Thai politics, landslide victory in the 3 July election and her journey towards the prime minister seat.
The magazine stated in the article that the criticisms against Ms Yingluck for being a sister of ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was claimed to be behind her rise to the power were not outrageous but she must prove herself against the allegation.
TIME Magazine also noted that Ms Yingluck has many challenges to face with as she must do what she has promised during her election campaigns such as increasing minimum wage, giving free tablets and Wi-Fi access to students without hurting the national economy.
Another critical problem for Ms Yingluck mentioned by the magazine is to restore the strained Thai-Cambodian relations and create reconciliation between the pro-Thaksin United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship and the anti-Thaksin People’s Alliance for Democracy.
Other female leaders in the list are German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Brazilian President Dilma Vana Rousseff, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The rest are Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir, Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, Finnish President Tarja Halonen, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and Trinidadian President Dalia Grybauskaite.
