EVEN IF WOMEN play now a more important role within the structure of political parties, men still have the final word and usually are the face of their organizations. In Spain, all four leading parties have a male head. That is why, although electoral lists must include a minimum 40% women by law, it is the leaders’ attitude towards gender balance what really makes a difference.
SOCIALIST SPANISH PRIME MINISTER José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero passed his Gender Equality Law in 2007, signalling his stance on this issue. Figures reinforce this picture: according to data gathered by the Woman’s Institute, PSOE had only 37% female MP’s in 2000, when its leader was former EU Commissioner Joaquín Almunia. Zapatero’s arrival at the top position of the party turned tables: female presence within Socialist ranks in Congress reached 46% in 2004 and stayed at 43% four years later. In 2011, under Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba’s leadership, women accounted for only 39% of the Socialist seats in the Lower House.
ON THE OPPOSITE BENCHES, Popular Party’s majority brought the highest proportion of female MP’s in this century: in 2011, they were 35%, ten percentage points above José María Aznar’s last term, when women were only one in four Popular MP’s.
Source: Women's Institute
FOR PP AND PSOE, majority in Congress means more women holding seats, while for smaller parties female presence is highly dependant on the level of representation they manage to get. This is the case for United Left (IU): in 2000, their group was made up of eight members and only two were women (25%). Four years later, however, with just five seats female presence reached 40%. In 2008, only two men sat on IU’s benches whereas in the last election (2011) the left-wing coalition obtained 11 seats in Congress, which brought women back even if they were just 27% of the group.
"At the end of the last term, Congress had 41% women MP's"
ACCORDING TO DATA from the Inter-parliamentarian Union (IPU), Spanish Lower House welcomed the 21st century with only 28% female MP’s. At the beginning of the 2004 term, this figure went up to 36% and has stabilized since then whenever a new Congress is elected. This percentage, however, varies along the term, depending on MP’s going in and out of politics. More recent data from IPU show how in September 2015 female presence in Spanish Congress reached 41%, which situated the country as number 14 in the world with a higher proportion of female MP’s. “Results speak for themselves”, emphasizes Zeina Hilal, when talking about Spanish Gender Equality Law. Hilal, IPU’s press officer, highlights the fact that this legislation imposes a minimum threshold of 40% “either sex” in electoral lists, which is ten points higher than the previous standard set in 1995 by the UN’s Beijing Platform for Action. Hilal also praises the “either sex” delimitation: “This is good practice and we are seeing that a lot in Latin America right now. I think the Spanish legislation has had an influence”.
Senate, male reserve
THE UPPER HOUSE is often seen in Spain as a place to retire for those politicians who have not won a seat on the front benches, and that has raised voices questioning its future. It seems to be also a “men’s only” club. Data gathered by the Woman’s Institute show how since 2000 only in the last term has the Senate had more than 33% female members. The most usual figure has been 25%, which means that only one in four senators was a woman.
Source: Women's Institute
CONTRARY TO WHAT happens in Congress, here is PP the party with a higher female proportion among its ranks. Since the beginning of the century it has always had more than 30% women and it almost reached 40% in 2011, when the Senate was last elected. In fact, it was a Popular Prime Minister, José María Aznar, who chose the first woman to chair the Senate in Spain: Esperanza Aguirre. The Socialists, in turn, show a more erratic pattern: between 17% in 2000 to 27% in 2011, only in 2008 did this group reach 30% female senators. Zapatero’s bet on equality capsized in this case.