31st Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities – 19-21 October 2016

Speech by Inger Linge (Sweden, EPP-CCE), member of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities

Debate “Women’s political participation and representation at local and regional levels”

Strasbourg, 20 October 2016

Dear colleagues,

As Rapporteur for this report and the Congress Spokesperson on Gender Equality, it is my pleasure to present the resolution and the recommendation on “Women’s political participation and representation at local and regional levels”.  I consider this report both as an assessment of women’s presence at local and regional political life, and as our contribution to the Committee of Minister’s Strategy on Gender Equality. I take this opportunity to thank our expert, Anna Ulveson, who was of great help for the preparation of the report and who is here with us today.

Our report provides an overview of the solid legal and policy framework of the Council of Europe, the Congress and other international texts that supports balanced participation and representation of women and men in political decision-making, starting with the important Recommendation (2003) 3 of the Committee of Minister which was a turning point in this regard.

However, women are still seriously underrepresented in political decision-making and continue to face difficulties in becoming involved in equitable numbers. It is time to step up the efforts to move further to achieve 40 % minimum representation of both sexes!

For this report we begun to collect our own data and sent out a questionnaire to all delegations and the national associations of local and regional authorities in all member States. There were twenty-eight respondents.  I would like to thank all of you who have taken the time to answer it.

Unfortunately, official electoral statistics in many countries do not provide details of the candidates nominated for election and the elected by gender, which makes analysis difficult and requires the use of information from other sources. There are no sources that over time monitor the political representation of women and men for all of Council of Europe member states. I therefore want to emphasise the need for gender-disaggregated statistics.

Conclusions that can be drawn from the questionnaire, Council of Europe and Congress texts and research are that solutions for enhancing women’s participation in political life exist, but they are not straightforward; they involve a variety of parameters;

·         Electoral systems that have a negative impact on women’s political participation and representation need to be revised and adjusted if we wish to increase a balanced representation in politics.

·         The nomination process by parties. Political parties have the power to recruit, select and nominate candidates. They are the gatekeepers to gender balance in political decision-making because they control “the secret garden of nominations”.

·         Electoral gender quotas are the most effective measures to achieve significant, rapid progress, provided that they are correctly designed and implemented. Quotas should have a ranking or “zipper” system and sanctions for non-compliance.

·         For the monitoring of the results of elections, gender-disaggregated statistics must be developed, analysed and used at local, regional and national levels;

·         Capacity-building programs, candidate trainings and recruitment programs must be developed in order to promote and increase women’s participation.

·         Social, economic, cultural and political factorscan hamper or facilitate women’s access to politics.

·         In my country, Sweden, we haven’t found it necessary to have quota by law. We have been fortunate to achieve a balanced representation in the political parties as well in the elected councils because most parties themselves have produced “zipper” lists. We call it “Every others is a Lady’s. The five biggest cities are led by women mayors. Elected representatives have the right by law to be free from work and to get paid for lost earnings to fulfill their political assignments. Childcare, parental leave that can be shared equally are facilitating factors. However, we still have a long way to go to achieve de facto gender equality.

Colleagues,  

I would also like to mention that the report of the Parliamentary Assembly, presented by Ms Elena CENTEMERO last April on “Assessing the impact of measures to improve women’s political representation”, is in favour of quota application. ^[1] In the resolution the Assembly supports the principle of gender parity which represents a further step beyond positive measures and the ultimate goal in political representation.

We have also looked at the facts and figures concerning the application of quotas in the national delegations to the Congress as well as their representation in decision making instances.  I am happy to say that looking at the 2008-2015 period, we can proudly say that the introduction of quotas has turned out to be a true success story for women’s representation in national delegations and as presidents and vice-presidents of the Chambers and committees in the Congress.

Dear colleagues,

Based on this analysis and these conclusions, I propose a Resolution in which we ask our local and regional authorities and their national associations the following:

-       make sure that the representation of  women and men in any decision-making body does not fall under 40 percent;

-       develop gender-disaggregated statistics and tools for gender monitoring of nominations and the evolution of  elections;

-       develop some specific actions, such as capacity-building programs, candidate trainings, recruitment programs to promote women’s participation;

-       support the establishment of gender equality committees and  networks in order to reinforce the women’s participation;

-       comply with quota regulations where they exist and introduce reliable monitoring mechanisms to ensure that women are included in the lists on an equal basis with men.

The resolution also briefly refers to gender budgeting. This is the subject of another report, which will be presented just after me by my colleague Cathy BENNETT (Ireland).

As to the recommendation, I propose to invite the member states of the Council of Europe to:

-       implement the Committee of Ministers’ recommendation (2003)3, taking stock of the developments which have occurred since 2003;

-       support the local and regional authorities in their efforts to enhance women’s political participation;

-       consider establishing gender-disaggregated official electoral statistics and tools in order to monitor the elections and nominations at local, regional and national level, based on good practice existing already in several member states, and support the local and regional authorities in this process;

-       consider adoption of legislative reforms to implement quotas for candidates in elections, with financial penalties in case of non-compliance, and where proportional systems exist, to consider the introduction of zipper systems; and

-       consider the revision and adjustment of their electoral systems if these systems have a negative impact on the women’s political participation and representation.

Dear colleagues,

Many problems remain. I believe that with measures such as the revision and adjustment of electoral systems that have a negative impact on women’s political participation and representation and the implementation of quotas for the underrepresented sex, we can move forward quickly.

We need to continue our work to strive for a more balanced representation, aiming in the longer run for parity.

We need gender-disaggregated electoral statistics and regularly monitor women’s representation and participation in political decision-making

If we can’t measure it, we can’t improve it!

To conclude, the resolution and recommendation which are in front of you are very important for us as women’s political participation and representation is vital for our representative democracies as well as for the development of our cities and regions.  This is why I ask you to adopt them.

Thank you for your attention.