Portugal’s president OKs new law to increase number of female politicians
LISBON, Portugal - Portugal’s president ratified a new law Monday that stipulates that at least one-third of political parties’ electoral candidates must be women.
The law aims to ensure a minimum level of female representation in Portuguese politics.
Currently, roughly one-quarter of the 230 lawmakers in the Portuguese Parliament are women. In a 2001 election of local mayors, however, just over 5 percent of those elected were women.
Two ministers in the government’s 17-member Cabinet are women.
Portugal briefly had a female prime minister, Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, in 1979, but she was appointed by the then-president to head a caretaker government and never faced a ballot.
Portugal has never had a female president.
The head of state’s formal endorsement, which was announced on the presidency’s Web site, is the last step before an act of Parliament becomes law.
The law was proposed by the governing center-left Socialist Party and passed by Parliament last month.