All the political parties that entered Parliament are obliged to remedy all the inequalities as regards the participation and balanced representation of men and women in politics in the nearest future. This is the message transmitted by the Partnership for Development Center following an analysis of the 2019 parliamentary elections from the gender equality perspective. Experts of the Center identified a series of inequalities that refer to the method of presenting men and women as candidates, their incomes and economic possibilities, the access to the media and voters’ perceptions of female and male candidates, IPN reports.
According to the Partnership for Development Center, the inequality in representation was seen in the fact that the parties designated fewer female candidates and these were placed on less eligible positions. For the national constituency, all the election runners obeyed the legal provisions on the minimum representation quota. This way, the female candidates represented 41.8% of all the candidates on the list. Even if the parties fielded more female candidates, these were placed on the list in an inequitable way. As to the inequality of incomes, the average income of a male candidate is twice higher than the average income of female candidates.
There was also inequality in the appearances on TV sets as the female candidates appeared less and less frequently in electoral debates and advertisements, talk shows and news programs during the election campaign. Of the 144 participants, only 23.6% of the persons representing parties were women. This is almost twice less than the proportion of women on lists of candidates (41.8% on lists and 28% on first five spots). The videos with woman were broadcast rarer. As to the inequality of trust, this could be seen in voters’ generic preferences of male candidates. The data collected based on opinion polls before the election campaign showed a significant part of the electors prefer to vote a male candidate in single-member constituencies.
To remedy the situation, the Center’s experts recommend introducing 2/1 placement provisions for all the lists of candidates. This way, one in three places is to be allocated to a candidate of the opposite sex. Another priority is to introduce penalties in the form of the refusal to register an election runner that does not obey all the provisions of the placement system. A minimum representation quota of 40% should be introduced as regards the nomination of candidates by parties for parliamentary elections in single-member constituencies. The Center also considers it is necessary to radically reform the party and campaign funding system. The relevant legislation should be amended so as to significantly reduce (for 50 times) the caps on donation to parties and election runners.
