Mexico's 2019 constitutional reform mandates gender parity across all three branches of government at every level. Congress reached near-parity after the 2018 and 2021 elections, though a 2009 loophole exposed by the 'Juanitas' case forced new safeguards against backlash.
48.6 %
Women in Chamber of Deputies (2018)
50.8 %
Women in Senate (2018)
48 %
Women in Chamber of Deputies (2021)
Details
Maturity
Established
Promoter
Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE) / Congreso de la Unión
Period
2019–present
Keywords
electoral law, political representation, constitutional reform, gender parity
Context
In June 2019, Mexico's Congress amended nine constitutional articles to require 'paridad en todo' -- gender parity in the composition (not just candidacies) of the executive, legislative and judicial branches at federal, state and municipal levels, building on a 2014 quota law requiring alternating candidate lists.
Results
Under the preceding 2014 law, the 2018 elections already produced 48.6% women in the Chamber of Deputies (246 of 500 seats) and 50.8% in the Senate (65 of 128 seats), per IPU Parline data; the 2021 midterm elections, the first held after the 2019 constitutional reform, kept the Chamber close to parity (about 48%) and delivered a record number of female state governors.
Conclusions
Numeric parity has not eliminated resistance: in 2009 eight elected female deputies (the 'Juanitas') resigned in favour of male substitutes, prompting a tribunal ruling requiring same-gender substitutes; a 2020 federal law against gender-based political violence followed documented harassment of women officials during the 2020-21 electoral cycle.
Implementation
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Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.
Law 21.216 (2020) mandated parity electoral lists and a results-correction mechanism for Chile's Constitutional Convention, producing the world's first gender-balanced …