By Sarah Caldwell
This is a special edition of the Rest is Politics column spotlighting women in politics around the world in honour of Women’s History Month.
Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah: On March 21, 2025, Namibia celebrated the 35th anniversary of its independence and the swearing in of its first female president, Dr Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah (popularly known as NNN). Just over a year ago, NNN cemented her place in history, becoming just the third woman to serve as the executive head of an African government. Defining herself as an ambitious implementer, NNN won the vote of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) on a platform of expanding education and healthcare and addressing the country’s growing socioeconomic issues.
Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah joined SWAPO in 1966 at the age of fourteen, where she quickly became the leader of the then liberation movement’s youth league, advocating against South Africa’s white-minority rule. NNN was forced into exile before she could even complete high school. For the next two decades, she continued to advocate and organise for the movement from abroad.
NNN returned to Namibia in 1990, when the country gained independence from South Africa. She immediately began advocating for women’s rights, working through SWAPO, serving as a representative to the United Nations, and later as a cabinet minister. Throughout her career, she consistently fought to protect women and children, championing issues including domestic violence and access to abortion across the continent.
Most notably, in 2000, she initiated discussions in the UN Security Council on women and peace, which led to the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325—the landmark resolution that established the Women, Peace and Security agenda. She also played a key role in advancing the groundbreaking Combating of Domestic Violence Act, which was passed by the Namibian National Assembly in 2002.
Upon her election as president, NNN told the BBC that she wants to be judged entirely on her merits, but that it was a “good thing that we as countries are realising that just as men can do, women can also hold the position of authority”.
Maia Sandu: The Republic of Moldova elected its first female president in December 2020. Opposition candidate Maia Sandu, won a sweeping victory despite significant Russian interference in the election. She campaigned on a straightforward platform focused on fighting corruption and strengthening ties with the European Union. Sandu won as leader of the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), a political party she had founded only five years earlier.
Moldova gained independence in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union and has since operated as a democracy, though it has faced persistent pressure and interference from Russia. Sandu, who grew up during the Soviet era, began her political career in 2012 as Minister of Education and later served as the country’s Prime Minister in 2019. Before entering politics, she worked as an economist at the World Bank, advising the organisation’s Executive Director.
As president, she has faced a number of challenges, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russian war in Ukraine, large-scale energy crises in 2022 and 2025, and a staged Russian coup on her government in 2023. Despite this, she has further rooted out Russian corruption, maintained support for Ukraine, pushed for further integration with Europe, and achieved goals regarding economic reform and liberalisation.
Since taking office, Sandu has improved the country’s rankings in both the Corruption Perceptions Index and the Press Freedom Index, significantly expanded renewable energy production as part of efforts to address climate change, and—most notably—secured Moldova’s candidate status for European Union membership in 2022, positioning the country to potentially join the bloc in the near future.
Maia Sandu was reelected to the government in the October 2025 national elections. PAS received over 50% of the vote, with its main rival, the Russia-friendly Patriotic Electoral Bloc (PEB), receiving only 24%. This result came after an estimated €300 million interference campaign by Russia, according to estimates by government officials. The outcome, a now absolute majority in Parliament for Sandu’s party, only further evidences the popularity and success of her first term in power.
Sanae Takaichi: Known for her adoration of Margaret Thatcher and heavy metal, Sanae Takaichi finally won leadership of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in October 2025, becoming the country’s first female prime minister. Takaichi, an MP for the LDP since 1996, had run for the role of party leader three times before she won the vote last year.
Takaichi has positioned herself as the conservative voice of the LDP, urging the party towards the right as they face off against the far-right Sanseito party. In 2025, the LDP lost its majority in both houses of parliament for the first time since 1955, but Takaichi was just the boost the party needed to regain a majority.
Takaichi called for snap elections in January: her popularity ratings have remained high since the election, especially among young voters, who have even developed a fandom for her called “Sana-Katsu”. In a local poll conducted in mid-December, approval for her cabinet was 92% among those aged between 18 and 29. This is in part because she is seen as a woman who has defied the odds in a system where men often inherit Diet seats ‘like family property’. Takaichi’s boldness and charisma have allowed her to reach the top of a system that does not make it easy for women to do so.
Sanae Takaichi has also directed her economic reforms toward younger voters, pledging to lower the cost of living and raise the income-tax threshold. These proposals resonate with many young people in a country with a rapidly ageing population and a struggling pension system. Government projections show that Japan has shifted from having 7.7 workers supporting each elderly person in 1975 to roughly 1.9 workers supporting each by 2025.
In February’s snap elections for the lower house of parliament, the LDP saw a massive gain of 118 seats, a two-thirds majority and the largest gain achieved by a party in the post-war era, setting up Takaichi to continue to deliver on her mandate. Even still, she continues to face criticism from the international community for ongoing corruption in her party, as well as her conservative views against same sex marriage and allowing married women to keep their last names.
Claudia Sheinbaum: Becoming Mexico’s first female and Jewish president in 2024 may not even be Dr Claudia Sheinbaum’s biggest accomplishment. Dr Sheinbaum has a PhD in energy engineering and jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for her contribution to work on education about man-made climate change and the efforts needed to counteract it.
The daughter of a chemical engineer and a professor of biology, Dr Sheinbaum was inspired by her parents to become both a scientist and an activist. While studying for her undergraduate degree in physics, she got involved in student politics and began protesting against the privatisation of public education.
Before winning 60% of the vote in Mexico’s largest ever election, Dr Sheinbaum served as environment secretary of Mexico City, the head of the Tlalpan district of Mexico City, and then as the first woman elected mayor of the city. Leading with a focus on “Mexican humanism”, her administration’s key 2025-2026 policies include a 45% renewable energy by 2030 goal, mandatory corporate training on gender violence, increased minimum wage, and 15 new “well-being” industrial hubs.
Dr Sheinbaum’s leadership has reached young and rural communities in Mexico that are often overlooked in national politics, helping explain her broad and unfounded popularity. However, she made global headlines in November not for her political achievements, but for a viral groping incident that occurred during one of her rallies.
The episode sparked outrage online, driving a renewed debate over harassment and the safety of women in public life. Dr Sheinbaum has since pressed charges against the offender and has announced a new national campaign against harassment. “There must be respect for women in every sense,” she said in a press conference, reflecting on her own history of experiencing abuse as early as the age of 12. “Harassment is a crime — and it’s time everyone in this country understands that.”
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own, and may not reflect the opinions of The St Andrews Economist
Note: This special edition seeks not to blindly celebrate these leaders and their policies, but to bring to light how all around the world women face many of the same challenges. Women are often overqualified and under-respected in politics, sometimes working three times as hard as their male counterparts to even get the chance to run for positions of power. One day, we may live in a world where there are no more firsts for women (maybe even in the US!), but until then, we must continue to celebrate Women’s History Month and the women who are making history this month and every day!
Image Credits: Hum, European Interest, NYTimes, France24