Although some women have reached important leadership positions in Colombian politics in the past century, Colombia lagged behind other Latin American countries in women’s suffrage and adoption of a quota law, and much remains to be done to increase women’s access to the public sphere and their political participation and representation.

No woman has ever held the presidency, served as minister of finance or interior, or headed a major government oversight agency or the Attorney General’s Office. Only one of the 32 departments has a female governor, and 11 have no female congressional deputies.

For the past four decades, however, women have outnumbered men at the ballot box. In the 2006 elections, 51.3 per cent of the voters were women. In addition, according to the Ministry of Education, since the 1990s nearly 60 per cent of university students have been women, with an even higher percentage among graduate students.

The More Women, More Politics campaign, which is sponsored by 10 organizations including International IDEA*, launched a study to develop a deeper understanding of the situation of women in politics in Colombia. The result is the “Ranking of Equality of Men and Women in Colombian Political Parties and Movements,” which was released 21 October 2008 in Bogotá. The goal was to determine what political organizations are doing to change the inequalities that perpetuate masculine power structures that offer an incomplete view of society, politics and the world. A democracy that does not effectively include and represent women, who constitute more than half its citizens, will remain weak.

In this area, the highest-ranking organizations were the traditional Liberal and Conservador parties, which are the country’s largest and oldest political groups, dating back more than 150 years and having well-established structures throughout the country. Another group that ranked high was a small movement called Mira, which is led by a woman (Sen. Alexandra Moreno), and which has done serious work on gender equality for more than a decade. Minority parties, meanwhile, turned in a poor performance in this area, mainly because of their less stable, more informal organizational structures.

How the parties act in elections is the best indication of their commitment to women. A political party’s rhetoric about women may be good, but it actually shows its commitment in electoral campaigns both at the municipal and national levels. Paradoxically, the small parties showed better performance in this area. This was particularly true of indigenous and Afro-Colombian groups, which encounter serious difficulties in placing the issue of equality on their agendas, but which, in practice, have a significant number of female representatives. The Movimiento Mira also had a very satisfactory ranking. Of the more traditional parties, the highest ranking was obtained by the Partido de la U, the main political group in the governing coalition.

Other political groups whose platforms traditionally include progressive policies, ranked at the bottom of the list in women in elected offices.

Ideological indicators were designed to determine whether parties and movements make women and gender equility a priority in their declarations of principles and programmatic platforms. Here again, the largest, oldest parties and the Movimiento Mira ranked highest.

The More Women in Politics campaign plans to carry out periodic surveys in order to measure women’s participation in Colombian politics more accurately.

* The organizations involved in the campaign are the Colombian Federation of Municipal Governments (Federación Colombiana de Municipios, FCM), National Federation of Councils (Federación Nacional de Concejos, FENACON), Sisma Mujer Corporation (Corporación Sisma Mujer), German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Colombia (FESCOL), U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), and U.N. Development Program (UNDP).