Chile: 7 elected females replaced by men to attain gender parity

In a rather unusual development, women fell victim to their own success in Chile as seven duly elected females, who made a strong showing in elections to pick candidates to draft the country's new constitution, were replaced by men to attain gender parity. Adjustments to ensure the body was equally split between genders had to be made in favor of more men, Chile's elections body Servel stated.

By design, half of the 155 seats on the new "constitutional convention" were reserved for women and half of the more than 1,300 candidates were women. However, nobody seemed to expect the strong showing of women at the elections. 

In total, 84 women were elected to the 155-member constitution-drafting body. Given that women occupied more than half of the seats, a gender "correction" tool to ensure parity was applied, after which the number of men is now 78—one more than the body's 77 female members.

The recent elections saw a strong show by female candidates. Women accounted for 16 per cent of candidates for governorship, 23 per cent for mayoral positions, and 39 per cent for local council posts in the recent elections.