ARGENTINA: Women Take Centre Stage in Election Campaign

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES , Oct 14 2005 (IPS) - Thirteen years after the passage of a gender quota law, women have become a significant force in Argentine politics and will play a decisive role in this month’s mid-term elections for federal legislators. But the progress made in addressing gender-related issues lags far behind the advances in women’s political participation.

The Oct. 23 elections for 24 of the 72 seats in the Argentine Senate and 127 of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies will be the first electoral test faced by the government of President Néstor Kirchner since he took office in May 2003.

But the upcoming elections are also noteworthy for the large number of women heading up electoral slates and the fact that female candidates are essentially guaranteed to win in a number of key districts.

“It’s heartening and satisfying to see that an affirmative action initiative like the quota law, which set a minimum requirement for women’s participation, has now led them to play a leading role in these elections,” María José Lubertino, director of the Women’s Political and Social Institute, told IPS.

Now that this first step has been taken, there are other challenges to be tackled. “First of all, demonstrating that we are not a uniform group,” said Lubertino.

This lack of homogeneity is reflected, for example, by the fact that only a small number of female candidates actively work towards advancing the cause of gender-related issues, she added.

These issues include the promotion of equality between men and women, the fight against gender stereotypes, advances in sexual and reproductive health, the legalisation of abortion, remuneration for domestic work, and respect for sexual minorities, among other questions that have been basically ignored in this campaign.

The eastern province of Buenos Aires is home to 37.2 percent of Argentine voters, and is thus considered the most important of the 24 districts into which the country is divided. According to opinion polls, three women are the frontrunners in the race to capture the three seats on the federal Senate allotted to each province.

All three are at the head of the slate of candidates for their respective parties, and the one who finishes on top will bring a fellow male candidate to the Senate with her, since Argentine electoral law awards two seats per province to the winning party, while the runner-up gets the third.

With 40 percent of voter support according to the most recent polls, the clear leader in this race is Cristina Fernández, the wife of President Kirchner and an incumbent senator in the province of Santa Cruz since 1995. Fernández is a candidate for the Front for Victory Alliance, a pact formed between the ruling Justicialista (Peronist) Party and other political forces.

Running second in the polls is lawmaker Hilda “Chiche” González, the wife of Kirchner’s immediate predecessor as president, Eduardo Duhalde (2002-2003), and a candidate for the Buenos Aires chapter of the Justicialista (Peronist) Party.

Fernández and González appeal to different sectors of the electorate, noted Lubertino. Fernández “presents herself as an independent woman, and downplays her relationship with the president,” she explained. González, on the other hand, “comes across to voters as a good wife and mother,” an image that suits the segment of the population that she is trying to win over.

Third place in the polls is occupied by Marta Maffei, who is running for the centre-left Alternative for a Republic of Equals (ARI), although she is a political independent. Maffei is a teacher and former president of the Argentine Confederation of Education Workers. But although she commands a significant share of voter support, she is unlikely to garner enough votes for a Senate seat.

In the city of Buenos Aires, where 10.2 percent of Argentine voters cast their ballots, the poll favourite for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies is also a woman, ARI leader Elisa Carrió, a former legislator.

Lubertino said that while Carrió distinguishes between her own personal views and those of her party, she is against the legalisation of abortion, and has done little to support women’s demands for equal opportunities.

If opinion poll tendencies translate into actual electoral results on Oct. 23, at least half of Argentina’s voters will have elected a woman to represent them in one of the two houses of Congress, something inconceivable a mere 20 years ago.

In accordance with the gender quota law, at least 30 percent of the congressional candidates put forward by political parties must be women, who have to be interspersed among the top positions on electoral slates. But apart from a few exceptions, female candidates are almost invariably placed second, behind male politicians at the top of the slate.

Women, however, have earned themselves a place of prominence in the upcoming elections, in a wide range of parties and in different electoral districts. Most lead up relatively minor political currents that have little or no chance of making an impact this time around, but could come to play a more significant role in the future.

That is the case of Patricia Buillrich of the centrist Unión por Todos (Union for All), a former labour minister in the failed administration of Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001), and leftist leader Vilma Ripoll, both of whom are running in the city of Buenos Aires.

Also in the race are women from the world of entertainment, like prominent former showgirls Moria Casán and Zulma Faiad.

Nevertheless, their nominations are likely the tail end of a trend promoted by former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), who helped launch the political careers of show business and sports celebrities like Formula 1 race car driver Carlos Reutemann and the current vice president, Daniel Scioli, a former world motor boat racing champion.

But in spite of this diversity, gender-related issues remain low on the agenda of political priorities across the board. In fact, many of the front-running female candidates have refused to champion them. Not one of the women leading in the polls is in favour of decriminalising abortion, for example.

Considerable gains have been made in the area of sexual and reproductive health during the centre-left Kirchner administration, but these are not priority issues for his wife, Senator Fernández, who prefers to debate traditional political questions like the federal budget, according to those close to her.

In the meantime, the more active role played by women seems to have done little to cure the ills that so deeply tarnished the image of Argentine politics in the 1990s, as elections continue to be plagued by a lack of transparency and accusations of vote-buying.

Less than three weeks before election day, a local newspaper reported that the Kirchner camp was allegedly distributing household appliances, mattresses and roofing materials to residents of one of the poorest areas of the province of Buenos Aires, where his wife is running for a Senate seat. According to the report, these handouts came from the Ministry of Social Action, which is headed up by the president’s sister, Alicia Kirchner.

The same paper claimed that similar tactics were being used to win votes for González, since one of her supporters, Deputy Governor Graciela Gianetassio, had sent personal cheques using public funds to families in the same district in need of social assistance.

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