Blanca Rosa Eekhout Gómez (born 6 January 1968) is a

Venezuelan Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

politician who has been Minister for Women and Gender Equality since 2016. She was Minister of Communication and Information between 2009 and 2010, and held the position as Second Vice President of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...

during the 2011-2015 legislative period. She has also been president of VTV and

ViVe Vive may refer to: * Vive, Viva, a Romance language expression * ''Vive'' (José José album), 1974 * ''Vive'' (Lucía Méndez album), 2004 *Vive (a cappella group), a cappella group from England, United Kingdom *ViVe Televisión, a state-owned Ve ...

and was cofounder of

Catia TVe Catia TVe (Televisora Comunitaria del Oeste) is a Venezuelan television channel, created and administered by the residents of Catia, a major neighborhood in the capital city of Caracas. Seventy percent of its programming is created by community o ...

in 2001.

Biography

Eekhout attended José Antonio Páez High School in her hometown of

Acarigua Acarigua (), founded as San Miguel de Acarigua, is a city in northwestern Venezuela, in the northern part of the state of Portuguesa (state), Portuguesa. Formerly the state capital, it is a major commercial center for the northern Llanos regio ...

, and graduated from the

Central University of Venezuela The Central University of Venezuela (Spanish: ''Universidad Central de Venezuela''; UCV) is a public university of Venezuela located in Caracas. It is widely held to be the highest ranking institution in the country, and it also ranks 18th in ...

with a Bachelor of Arts specialized in cinema. She was arrested in 1989 for instigating lootings during the

Caracazo The ''Caracazo'' is the name given to the wave of protests, riots and looting. that started on 27 February 1989 in Guarenas, spreading to Caracas and surrounding towns. The weeklong clashes resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, thousand ...

. She entered the

United Socialist Party of Venezuela The United Socialist Party of Venezuela ( es, Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, PSUV) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left Socialism, socialist political party which has been the ruling party of Venezuela since ...

(PSUV), becoming close to president

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republ ...

. She replaced

Jesse Chacón Jesse Alonso Chacón Escamillo (born 9 November 1965) is a Venezuelan politician, engineer, and former military officer. Chacón participated in the November 1992 coup attempt the second attempted coup of that year, when he took part in the occup ...

as Minister of Communication and Information from 16 April 2009 until 2010. In 2010, she was elected by her party to lead the candidacy in the

Portuguesa state ) , anthem = ''Portuguesa State Anthem, Himno del Estado Portuguesa'' , image_map = Portuguesa in Venezuela.svg , map_alt = , map_caption = Location within Venezuela , pushpin_map ...

for the 2010 parliamentary elections, where she was elected as deputy. After holding her seat in 2011, she was designated as Second Vice President of the Assembly until January 2015. She is the national coordinator of the

Great Patriotic Pole The Simón Bolívar Great Patriotic Pole ( es, Gran Polo Patriótico Simón Bolívar, GPPSB) is a left-wing socialist and chavist electoral alliance/popular front of Venezuelan political parties created in 2012 to support the re-election of Hu ...

and sectorial vice president of Alliances and Social Movements of the PSUV. In 2016 she was named as Minister for Women and Gender Equality.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eekhout, Blanca 1968 births 21st-century Venezuelan women politicians 21st-century Venezuelan politicians United Socialist Party of Venezuela politicians Women government ministers of Venezuela Members of the National Assembly (Venezuela) People from Acarigua Venezuelan people of Dutch descent Central University of Venezuela alumni Living people Communications ministers of Venezuela Information ministers of Venezuela