GOLD Report I - UCLG

191partments or regions held elections (Colombia,Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Paraguay). Inthe federal countries, the duration of governmentterms of office does not alwayscoincide with those of the municipal authorities.In Mexico, for example, the governorshave a mandate of six years, as opposed tothree years for the mayors.As for women’s participation in local governmentin Latin America, recent studiesshow that women’s political representationremains very low. Between 1999 and 2002,there were 838 women mayors serving in 16Latin American countries, representing only5.3% of the total (Table 5). The ratio ofwomen to men councilors is slightly higher.There is open public debate in all the countriesthroughout the region on the underrepresentationof women at local levels, andmeasures have been taken to improve theproportion of democratically elected womenofficials in local government. The quotasystem is the most common mechanism usedto improve women’s political participation 52 .Table 5 Women Mayors in Latin America (between 1999 and 2002)Country Number Percentage1. Panama 1999 11 14.82. Costa Rica 1998 10 12.33. Chile 2000 39 11.44. Honduras 2002 29 9.75. El Salvador 2000 22 8.36. Nicaragua 2000 11 7.27. Colombia 2002 76 7.08. Argentina 1999 136 6.49. Bolivia 2002 19 6.010. Brazil 2000 317 5.711. Paraguay 2002 12 5.612. Venezuela, R. B. 2000 16 4.713. Mexico 2002 80 3.314. Peru 2002 52 2.615. Ecuador 2000 5 2.316. Guatemala 1999 3 0.9Latin America 832 5.3Source: “Participar es llegar”, Alejandra Massolo, INSTRAW.United Nations. Dominican Republic, 2006.52. In Argentina, forexample, the lawprovides thatwomen candidatesmust be positionedin proportionssufficient to getelected; in Bolivia,a minimum of onein three candidateshas to be a woman;and in Paraguay,one in fivecandidates has tobe a woman; by lawin Mexico no morethan 70% of thecandidates can beof the samegender; and inPeru, at least 25%of the candidatesmust be women.There are electoralgender quotas alsoin Ecuador andDominicanRepublic.