In Mexico, gender balance push puts political parties in unfamiliar bind
Send a link to a friend
[November 18, 2023]
By David Alire Garcia
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - When Mexico's governing party unveiled the
winner of its poll to pick a Mexico City mayoral candidate, the result
was clear - but the male victor quickly had to give way to female
runner-up Clara Brugada to meet new gender parity rules now reshaping
Mexican politics.
Last weekend's leapfrogging of the most popular contender in the
National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), Omar Garcia Harfuch, was one of
the clearest illustrations yet of the challenges Mexico faces enacting
rules that mandate equal candidacies for women across thousands of top
political jobs.
Mexico's national electoral authority INE last month resolved that all
political parties must nominate at least five women to compete for the
nine elections next year to head regional governments, including the
capital Mexico City - part of a decades-long push for greater
representation that has led to dramatic results in the socially
conservative country.
Gender quotas have led to rapid advances for women. Since 2018, Congress
has been split 50-50, and nine of 31 state governors are now women - up
from only one woman state governor five years ago.
The gains includes the first ever woman to lead the country's Supreme
Court, plus the first female governor of the central bank.
On Nov. 11, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's leftist MORENA
party, tapped Brugada to be its Mexico City mayoral candidate even
though party-commissioned polling to find a winner gave Garcia Harfuch,
the city's former police chief, a nearly 14-point victory margin.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Nov/18/images/ads/current/elkhart_fertilizer_sda_FFARM_2023.png)
"I think there will be tensions, but ultimately deals will be made at
the top," said Violeta Vazquez-Rojas, a Mexican political analyst who
tracks gender equality. "The culture of parity has already been
established."
Vazquez-Rojas noted that MORENA party leaders selected women with the
most support to meet the 2024 gubernatorial quotas. If different
criteria began being applied, friction could arise, she said.
Efforts to get around the rules have sparked controversies like when 17
men in Oaxaca state were in 2018 disqualified as candidates after
falsely claiming to be transgender women.
Still, affirmative action policies had been hugely important, said
MORENA Senator Olga Sanchez Cordero, a former president of the Senate,
Supreme Court justice and ex-interior minister.
"If not, we wouldn't have gotten anywhere," she said, anticipating that
some parties will challenge the latest rule.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Nov/18/images/ads/current/charrons_bch_2022.png)
[to top of second column]
|
![](../images/111823PIX/news_w15.jpg)
Aspiring candidate for the position of mayor of Mexico City and
Iztapalapa Mayor Clara Brugada, attends an event in the municipality
of Iztapalapa, in Mexico City, Mexico September 5, 2023.
REUTERS/Raquel Cunha
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Nov/18/images/ads/current/chicagostreet_quarter_FFARM_2023.png)
Weighting of candidates elected by proportional representation has
ensured parity in Congress, but achieving it for winner-takes-all
posts at municipal level is much harder.
Women only make up around a quarter of nearly 2,500 mayors, though
that is 10-points higher than the average for Latin America and the
Caribbean, according to a study last year.
SET IN STONE
The push that also saw Lopez Obrador opt for gender parity in his
first cabinet has ushered in a broader shift that looks very likely
to yield Mexico's first woman president next year.
Carla Humphrey, an INE commissioner who has helped lead the charge
for equal representation, said the watershed dates back to gender
parity recommendations enshrined in law in the 1990s. They were
buttressed by 2012 changes that meant parties could have candidates
disqualified if the rules were not met.
Since 2019, Mexico's constitution requires gender parity in all
elected positions. "What have we done? We've made this principle
concrete," said Humphrey.
Mexican writer Margo Glantz, who has lent a sharp feminist edge to
her works, including a study of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a
pioneering 17th century Catholic nun and intellectual, said parity
rules were only part of the solution to entrenched sexism.
Just because a woman holds power does not mean her tenure will be
successful, she said, pointing to Guerrero state Governor Evelyn
Salgado, who was picked by MORENA in 2021 as a 11th-hour replacement
for her father after he was disqualified from competing in the
gubernatorial race amid controversy.
Glantz noted that critics have panned Salgado as being slow to
respond to Hurricane Otis, which last month devastated Guerrero's
beach resort of Acapulco, killing dozens of people. Salgado has
defended her relief efforts, saying she is working "tirelessly" to
help the city's tourist-dependent economy.
"Parity is necessary, but it's not enough," Glantz argued. "What's
necessary is having people who are brave enough that they can govern
well, culturally and socially."
(Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Dave Graham)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |