Wollfarth: Low women representation
08/11/2011 00:00
Linda Rama: Between Family, Work and Albania’s Future 18/08 14:30
Women representation in the public and political life remains low. The OSCE Ambassador in Tirana, Eugen Wollfarth, declared that
the political parties did not keep the promise for respecting the Electoral Code, which says that at least 30% of the MPs should be women.
“The women representation level is not enough; 17% in Parliment and 12.5% in local administrations. This raises the question why there were no more women elected? The objective, according the law, is at least 30% and more. It seems that the main obstacles for increasing the number of women are the fact that the parties do not respect the legal limit of gender equality, the electoral law does not impose obligations for respecting this law, and the way how the political parties democratic function goes”, Wollfarth declared.
Minister Spiro Ksera confirmed that although Albania has approved the law of gender quality in 2008, none of the parties respected the quotas during the local elections.
For reinforcing the role of women in politics, OSCE recommends to improve the democratic mechanisms in electing the candidates, in order to change the tradition of a masculine party leadership by building sufficient capacities for increasing the number of women. The OSCE presence assesses that the assistance for increasing the number of women in the public and political life will be a priority.
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