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 Editorials | Issues | March 2007 
Women in Mexico Politics Lacking in Numbers
 El Universal
| | "This isn´t an issue of political parties, this is an issue of responsibilities." -Sen. José Calzada |
While women have increased their presence in politics in recent years, they still suffer from a lack of representation on all levels of government.
Of Mexico´s 31 states plus the Federal District, which includes Mexico City, only one boasts a female governor - Amalia García of Zacatecas.
Additionally, only four out of 19 members of President Felipe Calderón´s Cabinet are women.
In Congress, the situation is similar - only 116 of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies are held by women, while only 23 of 128 senators are women.
This under-representation is worse at the municipal level, where only 86 of 2,435 municipalities, or 3.53 percent, are headed by women.
For Gina Zabludovsky, a sociologist at the National Autonomous University (UNAM), in addition to being under-represented, female lawmakers are often automatically pushed into roles traditionally deemed appropriate for women.
"Female politicians tend to be in specific areas, such as gender equality, and they are not well represented on committees such as finance, agriculture or defense," she said.
She added that the situation of women in Mexico was similar to that across much of Latin America, which she contrasted with nations like Sweden where women represent up to 50 percent of all political posts.
Zabludovsky called on the media and educators to provide greater emphasis to women´s roles in politics. She said this would go a long way in breaking the stereotype of the male politician.
"The changes have to be on a cultural level," she said. "We should try to avoid repeating the stereotypes of the past - and also draft better laws (for gender equality)."
According to a study on gender inequality carried out by the World Economic Forum in 2006, Mexico placed 75th out of 115 nations.
On Thursday morning, Calderón and representatives from Congress and the judicial branch signed a "National Accord on Equality between Men and Women."
The agreement calls on all three branches of government to work together toward promoting better opportunities for women and fighting gender violence.
Mexican Senate Rejects Calderon Central Bank Nominee
Thomas Black - Bloomberg
Mexico's Senate rejected President Felipe Calderon's nominee to fill a vacant seat on the central bank board after the two largest opposition parties joined forces to stop the confirmation.
The vote was 68 to 45. Opposition senators argued that Carlos Hurtado, a former deputy finance minister, was in charge of government spending increases that led to inflation surpassing the central bank's target. Mexico's inflation rate was 4.05 percent last year, up from 3.33 percent in 2005.
"This isn't an issue of political parties," Senator Jose Eduardo Calzada, a secretary of the committee and member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, said on the Senate floor. "This is an issue of responsibilities."
Hurtado's defeat underscores the role the Institutional Revolutionary Party will play in Calderon's efforts to push legislation to increase tax collection and open the energy industry to more private investment. The party, which held the presidency for 71 years before being defeated by former President Vicente Fox in 2000, holds the second-largest number of seats in the Senate and third-largest in the lower house,
"At the end of the day, they are going to use their discretion on a case-by-case basis," said Armand Peschard- Sverdru, director of the Mexico Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
'Plural Organism'
The Party of the Democratic Revolution, which has the second-most seats in the lower house of Congress and the third- most in the Senate, will likely seek to block Calderon's proposed legislation.
The party claims Calderon won the July 2 presidential election through fraud and illegal support from Fox. Andres Lopez Obrador, the party's candidate, lost the election by less than 1 percentage point.
Pablo Gomez, a senator for the Party of the Democratic Revolution, said the vote against Hurtado was a political statement. Calderon was seeking to fill a seat on the five-member central bank board that has been vacant since Dec. 31 when the eight-year term of Deputy Governor Jesus Marcos Yacaman expired.
"The board of governors of the central bank shouldn't be dominated by one school of economic thought," Gomez said on the Senate floor. "In this sense, the board of governors should be a plural organism."
Jonathan Heath, chief Mexico economist for HSBC Holdings PLC, said the argument that Hurtado was responsible for last year's increase in the inflation rate was "absurd."
"It's very clear they used only political criteria to reject Carlos Hurtado because he was well qualified for this post," Heath said in an Bloomberg television interview.
`Isolated Case'
Calzada said in an interview before today's vote that the rejection of Hurtado is an "isolated case" in which his party didn't agree with a particular nomination. The senator said his committee has approved at least nine nominations Calderon has made for Finance Ministry jobs.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party has sided previously with Calderon's National Action Party, which has the most seats in the house and Senate without having a majority in either.
Calzada's party supported Calderon's choice for ambassador to Canada, Emilio Goicoechea, assuring his approval. The Party of the Democratic Revolution had vowed at all costs to block Goicoechea, who was Fox's personal secretary.
"For the most part, Calderon has been successful in getting his nominees through," Peschard-Sverdru said.
Gustavo Madero, a senator from Calderon's party, said the spending argument was a "smoke screen" for other motives to reject Hurtado, such as the nominee's duty of assigning revenue in excess of the budget to state governments and his role in the Fox administration's Supreme Court battle with Congress over spending.
"It's a pity that personal agendas are being put ahead of the interests of the nation," Madero said on the Senate floor.
To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Black in Monterrey at tblack@bloomberg.net. |
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