INDIA:India is poised to get its first female president following voting by MPs and provincial legislators in the one-sided election yesterday.
While official results will not be known until the weekend the victory of Pratibha Patil - the dour and little-known ruling Congress Party-led coalition candidate over the incumbent vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat - supported by the Hindu nationalist-backed Opposition, was a fait accompli.
"Patil will win . . . she now the president-elect," a senior Hindu nationalist leader said, just before balloting in the electoral college of federal and state lawmakers ended. And like her 12 predecessors, Mrs Patil (72) will move next month to the sandstone presidential palace designed by British architect Edwin Lutyen's for the viceroy shortly before India's independence 60 years ago.
The 340-room residence that will be Mrs Patil's for the next five years, is like a mini township with a workforce numbering in thousands, a private golf course, polo ground and a hospital. It also has a school for the household staff in addition to a cinema and an elaborate swimming pool complex.
But even before she shifts to these plush digs Mrs Patil, who was governor of western Rajasthan state and found herself thrust on to the national stage when the Congress Party and its Communist allies failed to agree on a joint candidate for president, has been discredited.
A co-operative bank for women she helped establish was closed four years ago, plagued by bad debts and accusations of irregularities by its managers.
The bank's employees' union has taken Mrs Patil and others to court claiming loans, meant to empower destitute women, were instead given to her brother and relatives but not returned. She was also accused of shielding her brother in a murder inquiry, but as president she will enjoy immunity from prosecution.
Her critics also dug up a comment attributed to her when she was western Maharashtra state's health minister in the mid-1970s that people with hereditary diseases should be sterilised. India's president-elect then dismayed the nation by claiming that she had experienced a "divine premonition" that she was destined for higher office.
She further heaped opprobrium upon herself by offending the country's minority Muslim community, that Indian women first veiled their heads to protect themselves against marauding 16th century Muslim invaders.
Neither Mrs Patil nor her party denied these comments.
Though the president's role is largely ritualistic, the near certainty of indecisive electoral outcomes, particularly in the upcoming 2009 general elections, renders the role of head of state crucial in inviting a credible leader to form the new government.