International IDEA’s Bolivia programme is working with a network of women’s organizations to mainstream gender equality into all aspects of political life. One notable success was the Mujeres listas para las listas (Women Ready for the Ballot) campaign, launched by the Women’s Coordinating Committee, which resulted in a legal provision for gender equality on party candidate lists. This measure contributed to an increase in the number of women elected to the Bolivian Senate from 3,7 % (after the 2005 elections) to 41% of senators in 2009.
Katia Uriona, Secretary General, of the Coordinadora de la mujer (Women´s Coordination Office) and women leaders from social organizations at the Meeting with just elected women legislators, December 2009
In 2009 the new Bolivian Constitution took effect and campaigns got under way for the election of the president, vice president and members of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly. That process, however, was governed by a temporary law that did not fully incorporate the new Constitution’s principles and mandates in the areas of gender equality. The campaign, “Women Ready for the Ballot, Women Protagonists,” was launched as a response.
Goals of the campaign
The campaign had four main objectives: i) to ensure compliance with provisions of the Constitution and the Temporary Electoral Regime Law regarding parity in women’s participation in all representative positions; ii) publicizing women’s right to political participation, as enshrined in the Constitution and legislation; iii) publicizing women’s leadership roles as they ran for public office; and iv) promoting the greatest possible participation by women in the December 2009 and April 2010 municipal elections.
With a communications and advocacy campaign supported by International IDEA, women’s organisations won approval for various provisions of the Temporary Electoral Law, including Art. 9, which states:
ARTICLE 9 (on equal opportunities for men and women)
Candidate slates for senators, titular and substitute deputies, departmental assembly members, departmental council members, municipal council members and municipal authorities must respect the principle of equal opportunity between women and men, so that a male titular candidate is followed by a female titular candidate, a female substitute candidate and a male substitute candidate, or vice versa. In the case of uninominal deputy elections, alternation is reflected in titular and substitute candidates in each district.
A few days earlier, on International Women’s Day 8 March 2009), President Evo Morales committed himself to the cause, stating that he wanted women to make up 50 per cent of all government positions.
International IDEA and the network of organizations led by the Women’s Coordinating Committee launched a campaign with the slogan, “We share your dream, Mr. President,” which was crucial in achieving the final drafting of Article 9 and approval of the Temporary Electoral Law. Once that was done, it was important to monitor compliance with Article 9 and work with political parties and grassroots organisations to ensure that candidate lists complied with the constitutional mandate.
National mobilization and local commitments
Conferences were organized with women’s groups and possible candidates in different departments and a National Lowland Women’s Conference was sponsored to examine candidacies. A meeting was also held with possible candidates from the Bartolina Sisa Women’s Federation. Public vigils were held outside electoral courts throughout Bolivia.
These advocacy actions achieved significant results in terms of women’s inclusion on candidate slates, complaints about non-compliance with the Constitution and the law, and high visibility for the campaigns and women’s organizations in the media.
Parties complied with parity and alternation only for senate and plurinational candidates
An average of 48 per cent of the candidates registered for Senate and deputy races were women. The principle of parity was not observed in candidacies in uninominal jurisdictions, where only 21 per cent of titular candidates were women.
Overall, only 33 per cent of the candidates on the lists of the eight parties and groups that participated in the elections were women. This reflects the lack of political will on the part of political parties and civic groups to fulfil the constitutional requirement and expand democracy by including women. It also reveals the shortcomings of Bolivia’s mixed electoral system and the lack of mechanisms for ensuring effective compliance with the principle of parity in uninominal districts.
The National Electoral Court deserves mention for its work and its initiative in developing an information system for ensuring control of alternation in the makeup of candidate slates.
Results
Analysis of the national election results shows that the efforts bore fruit. Women won 30 per cent of the seats in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, a historic 47 per cent of seats in the Senate, and 25 per cent in the Chamber of Deputies. The highest percentage of seats previously held by women, reached in 2002, was exceeded by 18.5 per cent in the Chamber of Deputies and 14.81 per cent in the Senate. There was also a significant increase in the number of plurinominal women deputies, representing 47 per cent of the total.
Nevertheless, the data also show the weakness of women’s participation as uninominal deputies, with only 11 per cent. In addition, no women were elected to the Chamber of Deputies from a special jurisdiction.
The President’s commitment is now reflected in a Cabinet in which 50 per cent of the ministers are women. Yet we must continue fighting to eliminate socio-cultural obstacles and institutional prejudices about women’s political participation and make progress in establishing mechanisms for achieving parity of 50 per cent.
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