Eunice Olsen already has the Miss Singapore Universe crown in her court. Now, the 31-year-old Nominated Member of Parliament is in contention for another beauty title.
She ranks among the Top 10 in the list of the world's most beautiful women in politics and government. With 18,980 points, she is in 10th position, just after Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
The ongoing online pageant, to be decided by a poll, has been posted on Spain's 20 Minutos newspaper since December last year. It invites netizens to vote for their choice of contestants.
The posting features 64 candidates from 30 countries, including China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu. By yesterday, Ms Jiang was ranked 47th with 6,533 points, just three notches below US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Peruvian politician Luciana Leon, 30, was in first place with 46,512 points, while her compatriot Mercedes Araoz, 47, was second with 28,576 points.
The other Asian in the list is Japanese Yuri Fujikawa, 27, who was in the fourth position with 25,422 points.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was ranked 32nd, while Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was ranked 31st in the list.
Ms Olsen, the winner of the Miss Singapore Universe contest in 2000, is a Eurasian Singaporean. She is of mixed Swedish and Malaccan Portuguese ancestry from her father's side and Chinese from her mother's.
She is an active volunteer, providing counselling services to troubled teens. A former TV artist, she now aims to raise awareness about youth issues and to promote youth programmes and volunteerism.
The Beijing-born Ms Jiang has worked for the Foreign Ministry for more than 20 years and has been posted around the world, including the United Nations headquarters in New York.
She was designated the ministry's spokesman and deputy head of its information department in 2003, becoming the country's fourth woman to hold that position since the spokesman system was introduced in 1983.
The online poll does not say when the vote ends and when the winners will be announced.
This article was first published in The Straits Times.
