The electoral lists of two antagonistic parties that will attend the municipal elections on May 28 in Moià (Moianès, Barcelona) have been challenged by the Electoral Board. They are Vox and Capgirem Moià -CUP. And in both cases for the same reason: breaching the legal minimum of 40% for applicants of each sex. Vox had presented eight men and five women. And in Capgirem, eight women and five men.
A Vox spokeswoman acknowledged that the Electoral Board notified them of the problem, “which we have not only had in this municipality”, and immediately a candidate was replaced by a female candidate. “At 10 in the morning this Thursday we received an email from the Electoral Board itself acknowledging that everything had already been corrected.” The position of Capgirem-CUP, which will end up doing the same, has not been so accommodating.
The definitive list will have to be presented before Saturday and the anti-capitalists are still studying what substitution to make. The change, in any case, will be by legal imperative, not by choice, says 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 politics is now used for the opposite.
One piece of data is revealing: only 22% of the Town Halls in Spain are headed by a woman. For this reason, the Government has approved the Draft Organic Law on equal representation in decision-making bodies, “which aims to meet the objective of the United Nations 2030 Agenda to guarantee women and girls the same opportunities in employment , leadership and decision-makingâ€.
The standard responds to a community directive that sets the goal of 40% female participation in public and private management bodies: listed companies, senior management positions, boards of directors, award juries, professional associations… The principle of balanced representation It even affects the Council of Ministers itself and the Town Halls, at least the largest ones.
The General Electoral Regime (REG) has established since 2016 that municipalities with more than 3,000 inhabitants have equal lists, where no gender exceeds 60%. This is what has happened in Moià , and surely in other places that have not gone beyond. In Catalonia, however, there are at least two all-female lists: one linked to the PSC in Botarell (Baix Camp, Tarragona) and another from Junts in Cadaqués (Alt Empordà , Girona).
Both Botarell and Cadaqués are municipalities with fewer than 3,000 registered inhabitants (1,000 and 2,700, respectively). Article 44 bis of the REG determines that the candidacies in the rest of the cases “must have a balanced composition of men and women, so that the candidates of each of the sexes account for at least 40% of the list as a whole” .
Capgirem maintains that the Electoral Board has not taken into account “the historical and ontological interpretation of the purpose of the law.” What goal? Reverse “the underrepresentation of women through positive discrimination measures like this oneâ€. Her intention, now truncated, “was to create visibility and referentiality” to combat “the historical and structural machismo of our system.”
The debate is open. It has not occurred to any media outlet to denounce that the Vox candidacy in Moià has been overthrown due to an “excess†of men. On the other hand, the same has not happened with the other challenged list. “Excess of women”, it has been said. Those affected assure: “That a political party exceeds the quota for women, when the scale has been created precisely so that the opposite does not happen, is totally absurd.
In other words, it has no negative consequences for a list to have more than 60% women, much less to be challengedâ€. It must be repeated: only 22% of the municipalities in Spain have a female mayor and the female representation of some groups in the Parliament of Catalonia, affirms the CUP, “does not reach 30%”. And that, without actually addressing the real problem: “The executives of the completely masculinized parties.”
