The autumn-winter session of Parliament is close to an end, but the lawmakers do not hurry to adopt laws that provide for the introduction of a minimum quota of women’s representation in the political and public life in the final reading. In an article, the Association of Independent Press says that while the MPs still ponder over, the people are convinced that the women must represent them equality in all the areas of activity, while the executive posts should be held by competent persons, regardless of their gender, IPN reports.

In the campaign that preceded the local elections of this year, the gender of the candidates for mayor or councilor didn’t matter for most of the voters. For them, it was more important for the future managers to be competent and to administer the affairs for the benefit of the community. “It does not matter if they are men or women if they can assume responsibility for appropriately managing a community,” said Eugenia Culeanu, a teen from Straseni town.

There are also voters who prefer women in administrative posts. “In our country, there are more women than men. Why shouldn’t we have more women as mayors of towns and villages or even in Parliament and the Government?” asked Dumitru Dodita from Ustia, Glodeni.

According to the “Partnership for Development” Center, Straseni is the leading district by the number of women chosen as mayor in the last local elections. Over 37% of the mayors elected there are women. Basarabeasca, Briceni and Cantemir are the districts with the lowest number of women lawyers. Victoria Milenco, mayor of Bogdanesti village of Briceni district, said the political parties must more actively promote women to executive posts. In Briceni district, only two of the 28 mayor’s offices are headed by women.

In the local elections of this year, there were elected 898 mayors, but only 185 of these are woman, which is 20.6%. According to a study of Promo-LEX Association, most of the women mayors form part of the Liberal Party – 28.84%, while the lowest number – of the “Our Party” – 22.72%. Thus, no party reached the quota of at least 40% that many of the party leaders assumed publicly.

Aliona Apostu, electoral analyst of Promo-LEX, said Moldovan society does not yet realize the women’s potential. “Many of our people consider that the women are not leaders. Many do not realize that the women can also govern. The women are poorly represented at all the levels of decision-making also due to mediocre men politicians who accept to compete with women from equal positions. A woman looks at the development of society from the social perspective, while the men – rather from the perspective of business. Given such conditions, we need a campaign to promote women not only in Parliament and the Government, but also in society in general,” she stated.

If the lawmakers adopt one of the two initiatives on gender equality in the autumn-winter session of 2015, the Election Code and the Law on Political Parties will provide that at least 30% or 40% of the candidates on party lists should be women. The quota of women’s representation in decision-making of at least 40% is similar to that recommended by the Council of Europe.