The electoral lists of two antagonistic parties that will be presented at the municipal elections on May 28 in Moià (Moianès, Barcelona) have been contested by the Electoral Board. These are Vox and Capgirem Moià -CUP. And it was for the same reason: breaching the legal requirement of a minimum of 40% of applicants of each sex. In the case of Vox there were eight men and five women, and in Capgirem, the other way around.
A spokeswoman for Vox acknowledged that the Electoral Board warned them of the problem, “which we have not only had in this municipality”, and immediately one candidate was replaced by a female candidate. “Thursday at 10 a.m. we received an email from the same Electoral Board acknowledging that everything had already been resolved.” The attitude of Capgirem-CUP, which will end up doing exactly the same, has not been so complacent.
The definitive list must be presented before tomorrow, Saturday, and the anti-capitalists are still studying which substitution to make. The change, in any case, will be due to a legal imperative, not of their own volition, points out the head of the list, Lakshmi Roset. Sources of her candidacy consider it illogical that a rule that was applied to compensate for the low representation of women in the world of politics is now used for the complete opposite.
One figure is revealing: only 22% of the town councils in Spain have a woman at the head. For this reason, the Central Government has approved the draft organic law on Equal Representation in Decision-Making Bodies, “which aims to comply with the objective of the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations to guarantee women and girls the same opportunities in employment, leadership and decision-making as men and children”.
The rule responds to a community directive that sets the objective of 40% female participation in public and private management bodies: listed companies, senior management positions, boards of directors, award juries, colleges professionals… The principle of balanced representation even affects the same Council of Ministers and town councils, at least the largest ones.
This is what has happened in Moià , and certainly in many other places that have not transpired. In Catalonia, however, there are at least two lists composed entirely of women: one linked to the PSC in Botarell (Baix Camp, Tarragona) and Junts in Cadaqués (Alt Empordà , Girona).
Both Botarell and Cadaqués are municipalities with less than 3,000 inhabitants (1,000 and 2,700, respectively). Article 44 bis of the REG determines that, in all other cases, candidacies “must have a balanced composition of men and women so that in the list as a whole the candidates of each sex represent at least 40 %â€.
The representatives of Capgirem claim that the Electoral Board has not taken into account “the historical and ontological interpretation of the objective of the law”. What goal? Reversing “the underrepresentation of women through measures of positive discrimination like this”. His intention, now truncated, “was to create visibility and referentiality” to combat “the historical and structural masculinity of our system”.
The debate remains open. It has not occurred to any media outlet to report that Vox’s candidacy in Moià has been overturned due to the “excess” of men. However, the same has not happened with the other disputed list. Those affected say: “For a political party to exceed the quota of women, when the scale has been created precisely so that the opposite does not happen, is completely absurd. In other words, there are no negative consequences for a list to have more than 60% women, let alone for it to be challenged”. It bears repeating: only 22% of the municipalities in all of Spain have a female mayor, and the female representation of some groups in the Parliament of Catalonia, says the CUP, “still does not even reach 30%”.
