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Political Finance and the Equal Participation of Women in Colombia: a Situation Analysis

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Political Finance and the Equal Participation of Women in Colombia: a Situation Analysis Political finance and the equal participation of women in Colombia: a situation analysis The impact of economic resources on the political participation of women has become a prominent issue in the field of comparative political finance. In recent Kevin Casas-Zamora and Elin Falguera years, there has been a growing recognition that politics dominated by money is, more often than not, politics dominated by men. It is not surprising that the issue has moved to the forefront of debates on gender and political finance. This report assesses the extent to which political finance is a significant obstacle to women running for political office. It focuses on the experience of Colombia, a country that, like many other Latin American countries, continues to struggle with the legacies of pervasive social, economic and political inequality that disproportionately affect women. It explores the role of political finance in hindering women’s access to political power and its relative weight with respect to other obstacles to women’s political participation. It also suggests a number of institutional changes that might ameliorate some of the problems identified, while being fully cognizant of the limits to institutional change recasting deep-rooted gender imbalances. International IDEA NIMD Strömsborg Passage 31 SE-103 34 Stockholm 2511 AB The Hague Sweden The Netherlands T +46 (0) 8 698 37 00 T +31 (0)70 311 54 64 F +46 (0) 8 20 24 22 F +31 (0)70 311 54 65 [email protected] [email protected] www.idea.int www.nimd.org About the organizations About the authors International IDEA Kevin Casas-Zamora is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Peter D. Bell Rule of The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International Law Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, as well as a Senior Consultant in IDEA) is an intergovernmental organization that supports sustainable democracy Political Finance for International IDEA. worldwide. Its objective is to strengthen democratic institutions and processes. The Institute acts as a catalyst for democracy building by providing knowledge Elin Falguera is a Programme Manager with International IDEA’s Political Participation resources and policy proposals or by supporting democratic reforms in response and Representation Programme. to specific national requests. It works together with policymakers, governments, UN agencies and regional organizations engaged in the field of democracy building. International IDEA’s key areas of expertise are: electoral processes, political participation and representation, constitution-building processes, and democracy and development. Cross-cutting themes in this work are democracy and gender; democracy and diversity; and democracy, conflict and security. International IDEA works worldwide. It is based in Stockholm, Sweden and has offices in Latin America, Africa and the Asia-Pacific. <http://www.idea.int> The Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy The Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) is a democracy assistance organization established by political parties in the Netherlands to support political parties in young democracies. NIMD specifically provides assistance regarding processes of dialogue between political parties in programme countries, the institutional development of parliamentary parties and networks of cooperation between political and civil society. It adheres to strict principles of ownership, neutrality and transparency and acknowledges that democracies are home-grown. NIMD has provided support in context-specific ways and upon the request of its partners in constitutional reform processes in countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. <http://www.nimd.org> Political finance and the equal participation of women in Colombia: a situation analysis Political finance and the equal participation of women in Colombia: a situation analysis Kevin Casas-Zamora and Elin Falguera © 2016 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance © 2016 Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy International IDEA NIMD Strömsborg Passage 31 SE-103 34 Stockholm 2511 AB The Hague Sweden The Netherlands Tel: +46 (0) 8 698 37 00 Tel: +31 (0)70 311 54 64 Fax: +46 (0) 8 20 24 22 Fax: +31 (0)70 311 54 65 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Website: www.idea.int Website: www.nimd.org This publication is independent of specific national or political interests. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of International IDEA, its Board or its Council members, or those of NIMD. The electronic version of this publication is available under a Creative Commons Attribute- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 licence. You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the publication, and to remix and adapt it, provided that you do so only for non-commercial purposes, you appropriately attribute the publication, and you distribute it under an identical licence. For more information on this licence visit <http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/>. Graphic design: Santángelo Diseño Cover image: ‘Bogotá elections, 2012’ (Avi Dolgin/Flickr) ISBN: 978-91-7671-076-0 Contents 5 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................. 6 Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................................ 7 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 8 1. Colombia’s political institutions and development ............................................................................ 10 2. Political finance in Colombia: rules and practice ............................................................................... 13 3. Women’s political participation in Colombia ...................................................................................... 21 4. Political finance and other hurdles facing women ............................................................................. 25 Conclusion and recommendations .......................................................................................................... 36 References ................................................................................................................................................ 41 Annex ........................................................................................................................................................ 45 Acknowledgements 6 The authors wish to acknowledge the support of would like to express our gratitude for the comments the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy and suggestions received from Angela Rodríguez, (NIMD) office in Bogotá, Colombia, as well as the Catalina Perdomo, Catalina Uribe-Burcher, Nathalie timely research assistance provided by Natalie Ebead, Helena Schwertheim, Nathalie Brichard, Juan Brichard and Emma Bustos. We would like to thank Fernando Londoño and some of our interviewees. all our interviewees, who with great generosity lent Their input greatly improved the text. Any errors are, their time and experience to this research. Finally, we of course, the authors’ own. Abbreviations 7 AICO Movement of Indigenous Authorities of Colombia (Movimiento de Autoridades Indígenas de Colombia) ASI Independent Social Alliance (Alianza Social Independiente) FARC Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) GDP Gross domestic product IPU Inter-Parliamentary Union MOE Electoral Observation Mission (Misión de Observación Electoral) MIRA Independent Movement for Absolute Renewal (Movimiento Independiente de Renovación Absoluta) MAIS Indigenous and Social Alternative Movement (Movimiento Alternativo Indígena y Social) NIMD Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy NEC National Election Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral) Introduction 8 The impact of economic resources on the political that are rapidly spreading across the world.1 While participation of women has become a prominent it is clear that gender representation quotas have issue in the field of comparative political finance. In visibly enhanced the prospects of women holding recent years, there has been a growing recognition elected office, it is just as evident that this progress that politics dominated by money is, more often has been mostly confined to national legislatures, than not, politics dominated by men. According to as opposed to executive positions and subnational the final report of the Global Conference on Money bodies (Casas-Zamora, Muñoz-Pogossian and in Politics, held in Mexico City in September 2015, Vidaurri 2014). Even in the best of cases, political ‘lack of financial resources is widely recognized as gender parity is a long way away and will remain one of the key barriers to the political participation so until other obstacles to women’s political of women, whose access to business networks participation are acknowledged and tackled. and to the disbursement of public funding within party structures is normally very limited’ This report assesses the extent to which political (International IDEA et al. 2015: 13; Ballington and finance is a significant obstacle to women running Kahane 2014). for political office. It focuses on the experience of Colombia, a country that, like many other Latin It is not surprising that the issue
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