Next House of Representatives: parity advances, but not feminism

Via Rebelión

The first results of the election last Sunday, June 6, show that electoral parity advanced with the election of 50 percent men and 50 percent women. Nearly 73,000 women participated, to reach more than 10,000 seats reserved for half of the population.

Many of them committed themselves to the advancement of women; many of them, far from feminism, do not have an agenda in that sense and it is warned that there will be no strength to address pending issues, such as the legal interruption of pregnancy or clarity to make proposals on the freedom of Mexican women.

Most of those who will reach the Federal Congress come from the ruling party, clearly without a gender project. However, the struggle of women such as Mujeres en Plural or 50+1 is that women arrive, which is known as a “womanist” stance, although it is noted as an advance.

Thus, women will reach only 47.6 percent of seats in the Federal House of Representatives, according to the official data of the Preliminary Electoral Results Program (PREP), which means a loss of one point with respect to the current legislature and total parity was not achieved. With direct voting in districts, women won 138, 46 percent.

For the 50+1 collective, this shows the capacity of women to win majorities, since 300 districts were deputized by direct vote. But it will not be until the end of the week that the data will be completely certain, after the counting of the votes box by box.

In the Federal Congress, the ruling party lost 56 seats and in national votes, 16 million no longer voted for the official party. As reported in Mexico City, the opposition won in nine of the 16 mayoralties and for the first time there will be parity.

As in 2015 and 2018, after electoral parity, in some local Congresses, women exceed 50 percent. A look at three of the local congresses, women exceed 50 and even 60 percent of the representation in Oaxaca (56 %), in Veracruz (68.42 %) and in Chiapas (62.5 %), which is a minimal sample and not yet a trend for the country.

These initial results emerge from the application of the electoral parity rules, since the parties had to place 50 percent of women candidates in the two election systems and it was feared that the distribution would send them to lost or high-risk districts. Resistance in the parties did not succeed this time, in the Federal Chamber, and could be lower in the local congresses, but in the selected ones, Oaxaca, Chiapas and Veracruz, something different is seen.

According to this count, there will be 238 female federal deputies, which includes those of proportional representation or list. The decrease has to do with the non-compliance of some parties, by not having a woman at the top of the plurinominal lists.

The federal deputies distributed by political parties indicate that there would be 88 from Morena – considering the allied parties Verde Ecologista and Partido del Trabajo; 33 from Acción Nacional, 12 from Revolucionario Institucional, five from Partido de la Revolución Democrática and two from Movimiento Ciudadano; there are no results from Partido Verde Ecologista, which is expected to have 40 or more seats, with which some results of the composition could vary. In the current legislature, the percentage reached 48.48 percent in the legislature, where 500 seats are voted.

In the local congresses, preliminary results indicate less than 50 percent in Veracruz, with 48.48 percent; they exceeded 50 percent in Oaxaca, with 56 percent, and in Chipas they reached 62.5 percent.

In Oaxaca, 11 men and 14 women, not counting plurinominal seats; in Veracruz, 14 women out of 25 seats; in Chiapas, 25 women out of 40 seats.

Data on municipalities in Oaxaca alone, where 152 had elections, because the rest (418) are held by usos y costumbres. Of those 152 municipalities, women are ahead with 47 and, up to the closing of the PREP, seven are in conflict and there are no results. Women would have won 47 municipalities and men 97. Women won, for the most part, in small and low-income municipalities, where not many people vote, according to former electoral councilor Rita Bell.

The journalist Susana Solís, from Chipas, informed that in the Congress there will be 25 women out of a total of 40 deputies; nine of them are indigenous and four are from youth quotas.

In Veracruz, the ruling coalition “Juntos Haremos Historia” (Together We Will Make History) won 17 federal deputies and the opposition won only two, one won by a woman. The PREP reported that Morena and its allies are far ahead in federal deputies in the State of Veracruz, according to information from BillieParker noticias.

According to the PREP, as of 9:45 a.m. on Monday, June 7, with 83 percent of the votes counted, Morena and its allied parties, in this case the Green Ecologist Party and the Labor Party (PT), won the majority of the uninominal federal deputies in the state of Veracruz.