The campaign for the municipal and regional elections on May 28 has completed its first stretch and faces the last week. The parties reposition their strategies and refine the messages to try to penetrate key niches. In the PSOE it happens that there is a leak with the female vote. In the first stage of the electoral race, the Socialists have suffered a major flight. Specifically, it has squandered six points ahead of the PP.
Hence, Pedro Sánchez, at his rally in Santander this Monday, has appealed for women’s suffrage, recovering, as he has done on previous occasions, a rule already underway to dress it up as an advertisement: the Council of Ministers approves this Tuesday in second return of the first Law of Parity Representation and balanced presence of men and women in decision-making bodies.
The data from the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) are worrying for the PSOE as far as the vote for women is concerned: on May 11, this body reflected a six-point advantage in favor of the Socialists: 24.1% of the women opted for the socialist ballot, compared to 18.2% who chose the PP. Eleven days later, the same CIS confirms that this advantage has been squandered. To the question “In the next municipal elections on May 28, which party do you plan to vote for?”, 21.5% pointed to the PSOE and 21.1% to the PP. Tie.
These CIS data explain why Sánchez, at the beginning of this final and decisive stretch of the campaign, has emphasized “demanding the government’s feminist action.” To do this, she has described the Executive’s measures and the effect they have had on women. Namely: 60% of the beneficiaries of the increase in the minimum wage are women; the revaluation of pensions -linking them to the CPI- has a greater impact on this half of the population….
“Voting for the PSOE is voting for feminism”, the Prime Minister has proclaimed. “The more socialist presidents and mayors are at the forefront of the institutions, the greater feminist governments we are going to have, let there be no doubt for women.” A message that Sánchez has launched precisely on the day that classic feminism, embodied by relevant women with socialist cards, has entered the campaign to ask not to vote for PSOE and Podemos as “traitors”.
As a hook in this strategy to stop this bleeding in the women’s vote, the Government speeds up and sets a date for the final approval by the Council of Ministers of a law that has been underway for a few months. This Tuesday, the cabinet will approve the Law on Equal Representation and the balanced presence of men and women in decision-making bodies in the second round.
It so happens that the ministries of the Presidency, Finance, Interior, Economic Affairs and Justice participate in the preparation of this regulation, all of them as co-proponents, but not Equality, which has been left out. An issue that shows the clash within the coalition for championing feminist initiatives, leaving, in this case, clearly displaced Podemos.
The norm was already promoted in March, but now the decision is to approve it definitively in order to send it to Congress and that it can be in the BOE, that is, in force, before the end of the legislature.
As a novelty with respect to the initial text, the norm will also affect the constitutional bodies of the State, since it will force them to have equal representation.
In other words, and according to government sources, it concerns the Constitutional Court, the Council of State, the Court of Accounts, the Fiscal Council and the General Council of the Judiciary. The bodies in charge of ensuring compliance with the obligations of equal representation in listed companies and public interest entities will be the CNMV and the Women’s Institute, respectively.
Although this is the novelty that the Executive wants to introduce, in reality, to this day, it is a milestone towards which it is already moving. Of the 11 Constitutional seats, five are for women; The Court of Accounts is already equal today and the CGPJ is also almost equal.
The new norm will force the presence of at least 40% of women in: the Government; the boards of directors of large companies; electoral candidacies, through rack lists; professional associations; public recognition juries.
“On many occasions you will have heard the right and extreme right say that quotas are at odds with meritocracy. But on the walls of the ministries there are few portraits of female ministers. Thanks to the quotas led by the PSOE, first internally and then at the institutional level, today in the Cortes there are 47% more women than in the first courts and today we have a Government committed to gender equality”, Sánchez defended.
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