By 98 votes, 3 against and 52 abstentions, the Chamber of Deputies approved the report of the Joint Committee of the project on independents and gender parity in the constituent process, in an outcome that was received with effusivity in the hemicycle.
The initiative required 93 votes for approval, and now it will be the Senate, which has a session scheduled for this afternoon, which will have the final say to define the issue. In that instance, 26 votes are required.
The session had special moments such as the purple shirts worn by the opposition deputies with the legend “Parity already”, who listed the vote as “historic”, and the rush into the hemicycle of Senator RN Manuel José Ossandón to try to order the ranks of his party.
The formula for balancing the representation of women and men at the convention states that single-party lists, lists of independent persons and electoral pacts to the constituent body must be headed by a female candidate and will be ordered successively alternately with the men’s candidacies.
In addition, 50% women and 50% men must be elected in districts that share an even number of seats. The formula for odd districts is also established, for which a correction per district will be applied, in the event that the results are not parity. Thus, if a gender is overrepresented, elected councillors of that gender will be ordained from highest to lowest and those with less votes will be replaced by the minority gender candidate on the same list, pact or party.
