MONTEVIDEO: “Here lie Uruguayan women’s civil rights,” jokes Jimena Olascoaga, a young female politician from the opposition National party (PN), pointing to a plaque in the small community of Cerro Chato commemorating the first time a woman cast a vote in Uruguay, on July 3, 1927. It is like a plaque on a grave. “Some male politicians complain: ‘What else do you want, if you already can vote?’ We want to be on par with you,” she says.

Civil rights were granted to Uruguayan women in the early 20th century, but political power has remained largely beyond their reach. In 2009, the country passed a gender quota bill in an attempt to ensure a minimum of 33 per cent of women in the two chambers that make up the country’s general assembly. Opposition slowed the passage of the bill, which took more than three years to go through. When it did, it contained a compromise: although the quota would be permanently applied to parties’ internal elections, it would be enforced only as an experiment for this month’s general election and next year’s local elections.

With the Oct 26 poll nearing, some parties have used tactics to dodge the female representation requirement. Uruguay’s electoral system is party-list proportional representation: parties, and every faction within them, present a list of nominees in order of preference, who are elected to parliament in proportion to the votes obtained by the parties.

Under the new gender quota law, candidates of both sexes must be represented in every three places on electoral lists, either throughout the entire list or in the first 15 places. Where only two are listed, one candidate must be a woman. The law is intended to prevent parties listing all their male candidates first, and putting their female candidates at the bottom. Yet parties are still listing women only third; of hundreds of candidate lists, only two are headed by women.

Other tricks include placing the same woman in different lists for both the senate and the lower deputies chamber, with men as her alternate candidates. The electoral court can reject lists that do not comply with its rules. But no fines have been issued to non-compliant parties.

Beatriz Argimon, a former PN deputy for Montevideo, believes she was punished by her party for strongly supporting the gender quota bill. “I paid a price,” she says. “In the 2009 elections, I was only offered a place as an alternate candidate in a list without a single woman as principal. I declined.” Argimon ended her 10-year career as a legislator, but became a member of the party’s board. From that position she has championed the creation of a PN gender observatory, which is scrutinising the implementation of the quota and supporting female candidates.

Uruguay is 109th in the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s list of 189 countries ranked by the percentage of women in parliament, below Saudi Arabia in joint 76th. Women hold only 13 of the 99 seats in the lower house and two of 31 in the senate. In both houses combined, women comprise only 11.6 per cent of legislators, well below the regional Americas average of 25.7pc. Uruguayans, however, are moving faster than their political leaders. Polls have shown support of almost 60pc for greater female representation and 49pc for quotas.

Women make up 52pc of Uruguay’s population of 3.3 million, 64pc of university students and 62pc of postgraduate students. Their labour-force participation is 76.3pc of that of men, among the five highest in South America. They are also deeply involved in political activism.

“Uruguay has extraordinary social statistics, but on women in politics, the figures are too low. This cannot remain unchallenged,” said Denise Cook, resident coordinator for the UN Development Group, at a recent training programme for 40 young female Uruguayan politicians.

Why is democratic change so slow in a country that has legalised abortion, marijuana and same-sex marriage? Margarita Percovich, a former senator in the governing Broad Front coalition and a member of the citizen pressure group Cire, provides a plausible explanation: “Uruguay was built on the ideas of egalitarian universalism, which brought about a society culturally dominated by the middle class, where no one is better than anyone else.

“In a society that supposedly offers universal access to health, education and so on, social and political rise must also be justified on the grounds of merit,” she says.

But the suggestion that quotas should not be needed in a meritocracy ignores the racial, financial and gender barriers facing many people. Moreover, those who decide who has the capability to advance are those who already exert power: men.

The quota has irreversibly shaken up the system, says Argimon: “Women are speaking out to their leaders, saying for the first time they want to occupy decision-making positions.”

An alliance of women’s groups and a multi-party network of female politicians has joined forces in a campaign for equal opportunities. Last month, a petition calling for gender equality in politics signed by 5,500 Uruguayans — was handed to party leaders in the presence of the actor Emma Watson, UN Women’s goodwill ambassador.

Conservative leaders often attribute the low number of women in politics to lack of will or merit, while even some female politicians have reservations about quotas. “No matter how excluded, you have to conquer those places. Fighting and gaining [a seat] is fairer than just being given one by quota,” Broad Front senator Lucia Topolansky said in an interview in May.

Yet Lucy Garrido, coordinator of the feminist NGO Cotidiano Mujer, points out that the seats assigned to provinces constitute a territorial quota, acknowledging the need for balanced geographical representation, and argues the same principle could be applied to gender.

Garrido has a warning for male politicians resistant to change. “Do they really think there are not enough talented women to hold political power? Watch out, we do vote, and if they continue to call us stupid, they risk losing their seats.”

—By arrangement with the Guardian

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2014