Anna Emanuelsson, 144639
Political Science Bachelor, Uppsala University
On Monday afternoon the combating political parties in the upcoming Mexican election were directed by the Mexican electoral institute (IFE) to change their lists of candidates to fulfill the 40 % quote of gender representation. The conservative party, Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) was one of the parties that were told off for not presenting enough women as candidates in the House of Representatives, for the Mexican Senate and for the representation within the different districts. Mrs. Josefina Vasques Mota, the first female president candidate in Mexican history and leader of PAN, was given a deadline of 48 hours for presenting a new, gender quoted list of representatives of the party. On Wednesday morning the party complied with the demand and had substituted a considerable amount of male candidates with female candidates. According to a PAN representative, the party acted in time and followed through with the demands of IFE and substituted male candidates into areas in which PAN is usually less competitive. The same representative says that in the long run, it is necessary to change the concept of gender equality within the electorate rules.
This hasty change of assembly within the political teams have raised criticism towards the concept of gender quotation. The critics say that quotation based on gender within the political parties puts the internal elections out of place, and damages the parties.
The news flow regarding the demand on the parties from IFE has dominated the bigger national newspapers over the last couple of days. The angry tone from PAN and PRI representatives regarding this issue comes as a surprise to me. Surely the different presidential parties knew beforehand about the rules of having at least 40 % representation of a single gender. The choice to ignore this rule has now generated problems for the parties themselves and undermined the position of the female candidates. This rule was not created to punish or make life “harder” for anyone, it was created to solve the problem of representation, which we all know is the backbone of any democratic government.
The negative reaction towards this requirement is in itself a democratic problem. If the interests of all groups of society are to be fulfilled, we need representation that reflects society, its interests, and its opinions. Politics that are aware and present, close and listening to what the people need and want and therefore represent the population is something worth aiming for. This cannot be reached with representatives that come from only one city, nor representatives that are all of one sex. Therefore, gender quotation is one way to resolve the problem of unequal representation.
Gender quotation is not a perfect solution and the problems that it creates are very well represented in this case. Angry men who were pushed aside for who they believe to be unqualified women without support within the party – lash out in the media. Their argument is that merits and qualifications are more important then gender. This might be true in many cases, but when it comes to democratic representation we must consider the inequality that is so obvious in the Mexican society, and ask ourselves why there are so few “qualified” women in the first place.
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