Voters elect record number of women deputies to national Congress in historic general election vote

Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría (PP), Meritxell Batet (PSOE), Irene Montero (Podemos) y Marta Rivera (C's). Photo: El Mundo
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• Women win 140 seats in 350-member Congress, but fall short of ‘parity’

• Nearly half of Podemos’ 69 seats & PSOE’s 90 seats go to women candidates

As many as 140 women will take their seats in Spain’s new Congress of Deputies, the result of an historic election in which Spaniards elected more women to public than in any election since Spain’s return to democratic rule in the 1980s.

Despite the strong show of voter support for party tickets with women candidates, however, the number of women elected falls far short of the “parity” target of 175 women deputies in Spain’s 350-member national Congress.

A total of 2,263 male candidates and 2,090 women candidates were listed on the 605 party tickets for Spain’s provincial electoral lists, giving women 48 percent of the total candidate slots in the general election balloting.

The party with the most women elected was Podemos, running either alone or in coalition with other parties and movements in several electoral circumscriptions, with 48 percent of its 69 seats in the new Congress assigned to women candidates. Following close behind was the Socialist party (PSOE), with 46 percent of its 90 seats in the new Congress assigned to women candidates.

Read the Full Story in Spanish at El Mundo >>

Read the Full Story in English at The Local >>

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