The larger the settlement, the lower is the percentage of women included on the lists of candidates. The women candidates are mainly placed at the end of the list, as the young people are, shows an analysis carried out within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections.
In a news conference at IPN, sociologist Vasile Cantarji, who analyzed the presence of women on the lists of candidates on a sample of 120 mayor’s offices and councils, said the women represent 19.6% of the candidates for the posts of mayor. In the case of candidates for posts on local councils, the women constitute 35.1% of the list.
According to the sociologist, the low presence of women on the lists is due to the fact that these are not sufficiently promoted within the political parties of which they form part. They often cannot run independently because they do not have financial resources for campaigning. There is the traditionalist approach that the women must do the housework. Also, the women do not have enough time for growing at professional level because they dedicate many years of their life to the raising of children.
Cristian Ciobanu, the representative of the Partnership for Development Center, said none of the nine electoral platforms of candidates for the mayoralty of Chisinau available scored more than 5 points of 10 when they were analyzed from the angle of gender equality.
The largest number of points were accumulated based on the criterion “Gender-sensitive infrastructure projects”, which includes such projects as social dwellings, communal infrastructure, public transport, recreation and personal security in the public area (e.g. street lighting). The next two criteria that scored the largest number of points are: “Policies to involve community” and “Gender equality as a political value”. On the other hand, the criterion “Gender-sensitive public services” scored 0 points.
According to Cristian Ciobanu, the platforms seldom address different categories of people, like elderly people and young families. These mainly treat the voters as a homogenous mass.
