Irene Sáez

Mona Irene Lailin Sáez Conde (born 13 December 1961 in Caracas, Venezuela) is a Venezuelan politician and beauty queen who was crowned Miss Universe 1981. She has been a model, was the mayor of Chacao (a municipality of Caracas), Governor of the state of Nueva Esparta and a former presidential candidate.

Pageants

Sáez was crowned Miss Venezuela 1981 and later, crowned Miss Universe 1981 at the 30th annual pageant in New York City at the age of 19. She was also Queen of Club Campestre Los Cortijos for three years in a row. In 1997, she was awarded the Distinguished Achievement Award at the Miss Universe Pageant, a recently created prize of the Miss Universe Organization. She made her acceptance speech in both English and Spanish. Sáez was received in the International Airport Simón Bolívar by former president of Venezuela, Luis Herrera Campins and he gave her a chain of gold for her victory in Miss Universe.

Political career

Mayor of Chacao

After spending a year travelling the world as Miss Universe, Sáez had studied political science at the Central University of Venezuela, and then served successfully a year as Venezuela's cultural representative to the United Nations expanding the international contacts developed into the realm of culture and diplomacy. In the early 1990s Sáez turned to electoral politics and a week after the November 1992 coup attempt, led by Hugo Chavez, was elected mayor of Chacao Municipality, the wealthiest of the five municipalities of Caracas. Unbeknownst to Sáez at the time her political future would continue to be tied to Chavez's meteoric rise in the OPEC nation.