Short Analysis Of The Slovenia General Elections From The Gender Point Of View
29 September 2008
From the change of the socialist one party to the democratic multiparty parliamentary system in 1990, Slovenia has one of the biggest democracy gaps in political representation of women.
In 1990, women’s representation in the parliament dropped from 26 % and has been oscillating between 7.8% and 13.3 % for the last 18 years. If there are no early general elections the situation will stay the same for the next four years.
In the period from 1990 to 2005, Slovenia could also not get more than 1 to 3 female ministers per government, no more than 6% of female mayors and not more than 12% of female local councilors. There were years (1996-2000) when there were only 7.8% of female MPs, and not one female minister in the government (1996-1999).
It seemed that Slovenian women’s movement found the way to put an end to this obvious discrimination of women only in 2001, when a Coalition for Parity was established. This cross-cutting coalition was strong and clever enough to use the last part of the Slovenian accession period (2001-2004) as a window of opportunity for successful advocacy and lobbying for positive measures in the Constitution as well as in the electoral legislation.
In 2004, first the Law on Election for European Parliamentarians was amended. 40 % quota with the placing rules – at least one from the opposite sex has to be placed between the first three names on the lists - was enacted in the parliament with central left majority. This lead to the first breakthrough. Slovenia has now 42.8 % of women in the European Parliament.
In 2004 successful change of the Constitution also obliged the parliament to enact legal positive measures for gender equality on the candidate lists for all other elections. The Slovenian parliament, under a right wing majority, enacted quota rules first for the local elections.
Neutral quota was enacted in 2005 but with a very long period of gradual implementation. 40 % quota and the zipper in the first half of the lists should be applied only in 2014.
In 2006 Slovenia held local elections with 20 % quota and the rule of at least one of the opposite sex between every three names in the first half of each party list. The persentage of female councilors jumped from 12% to 21%. But there were no quota enacted for mayors, and the percentage of female mayors dropped from the already miserable 6% to only 3%.
In 2006, the parliament with the right wing majority also enacted the quota for general election. This time gender neutral quota has been set to 35 % for all party lists, with no placing rules whatsoever, starting again with much lower 25 % quota for the first new elections.
Slovenia just held its first general elections with legal quotas for all party short lists. But again only 13.3% of women MP-s will have seats in the new Slovenian parliament, in spite of the fact that all competing parties had at least 25% of women candidates, some of them even much more. Out of 7 parties which have passed the threshold, there are three minor parties with not one woman elected. The winners of the elections, the Social Democrats, have 27.6 % of women MP-s, while the biggest party from previous elections, which has only one seat less of the winner, has only 7.1% of women MP-s.
How come?
The Slovenian voting system is a strange mixture of proportional and majoritarian systems. There are 8 electoral districts in the country, but the electoral units are uninominal. The only placing rule which would have enabled female candidates to get equal chances for election would be to practice parity for all electoral unites where a respective party got its candidate elected, from 1992, in several previous elections. The analysis of the placement of female candidates with regard to the eligibility of their unites, shows, that only one party – the Social Democrats - gave 3 out of 9 such unites to their female candidates, all the others female candidates had to run in the unites where SD got its candidate elected for the first or , at most, for the second time since 1992.
On the other hand, central right Slovenian Democratic Party gave such safe unites to only 2 of their female candidates, while all the others were placed in the electoral unites with smaller or no chance to win.
Throughout 2008 civil society women’s movement in Slovenia tried to exert pressure on all political parties to give to their female candidates equal chances to get elected, but with no visible success.
It succeeded, for example, in persuading the Governmental Office for Equal Opportunities to commission a research on the placing of female candidates in the winnable unites. But when the outcome of this research was very negative for the Slovenian Democratic Party, the leading party of the outgoing right wing coalition, the director of this Office, coming from this party, did not allow the results of this research to be published in time to be used in the parallel women’s electoral campaign. In 2008 Slovenian elections were not decided by female voters, who were outraged by the undemocratic attitude of the Slovenian Democratic Party towards their female candidates. Women’s Lobby of Slovenia did not succeed to make gender equality a serious issue of this general election.
The question is now how to make gender equality in politics a serious issue of the new governing coalition.
The new coalition will most probably consist of the parties which consider themselves to be democratic and left or central left. The candidate for Prime Minister, the president of the Social Democrats, Borut Pahor, only a few days ago, kindly gave his signature of support to the parity campaign of the European Women’s Lobby.
The electoral program of the winning party is full of concrete promises with regard to gender equality in politics. There is also the encouraging fact that the biggest percentage of voters gave their vote to the Social Democrats, the party with a serious percentage of women candidates.
It depends on the ability and political influence of the Slovenian women's civil society movement to persuade the democratic left and central forces to demonstrate their devotion to genuine democracy also when it comes to the real political power of women on a national level.
Women’s Lobby in Slovenia, which has somehow replaced the Coalition for Parity in 2007, should immediately take action and publicly request from the candidate for Prime Minister and from the forthcoming governing coalition:
to form a new government with 50% of female ministers
to amend the electoral legislation by immediately raising the legal quota for general election to 50 % and
to introduce the placing rule of 50-50 (parity) for winnable electoral unites.
Sonja Lokar, Coordinator of the CEE Network for Gender Issues for the SEE Ljubljana, September 24, 2008
