1. Introduction
1.3. Background information
1.3.2. Situation of women in Slovakia
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Czechoslovakia. In the first round of presidential elections 2009 she got 38.05 % and passed to the second round.
The second round of presidential elections was held on April 4th, 2009, the moratorium period started 48 hours prior to the beginning of the elections3. Iveta Radičová lost to Gašparovič; she obtained 44.47% of all the votes. The turnout of the second round was higher than in first round, it was 51.7%.
1.3.2. Situation of women in Slovakia
On May 1st, 2004 Slovak Republic entered European Union, and now shares many legislative norms, policies, and future goals with European Union. There are many initiatives in European Union to ensure future development toward the equality of men and women in every aspect of the life, but in reality the equality is yet to be established. During the last few years there has been a general increase in the number of women in decision- making positions in Europe, however the report of European Commission (2009) shows that women still remain a minority in political and economic spheres. In parliaments, governments and ministries and in the private sector too, power is still firmly in men‘s hands.
According to Ženy a Európske voľby: súhrnná analýza4 (2009) the majority (77%) of women in the European Union think that men are dominating politics. Most women believe that a female presence in politics would bring a positive change. In addition, the majority of women think their interests are not presented and guarded by politicians currently in power.
3 April 2nd, at 7:00am
4 Women and European Elections: general analysis
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women who think that personal and family life keep them from career (2009). Basic equal rights are rooted in the Slovak constitution, and recently new regulations have helped to strengthen equality, but in reality, the status of women is not actually the same as the law ensures, mainly in the domains of labor market, private and political life, family and career. The dual roles of mother and employee are typical for Slovak women, and balancing these can be difficult. They have to deal with low participation of men in family duties and in education of children (http://www.employment.gov.sk/).During the communism period, all the adults had an obligation to be employed, but after 1989 Slovak women ―faced a new challenge of a choice, which they never had during socialism:
a choice of staying at work and being economically and professionally active or of returning to the ‗traditional role of women‘, in the family and with children‖ (Bitušíková 2005, p.1006).
The position of women in politics during communism was also different than after 1989.
During communism, there were quotas for participation of women in politics. These quotas demanded 30% participation of female politicians in the Parliament (Filadelfiová 2002). These quotas have helped to ensure at least 20% of female participation. As an example, the percentage of females in Parliament was 29% from 1985 to 1989, but according to Bitušíková (2005) this relatively high number of women in the legislative authorities and their participation in politics was only a formality, and their impact on decision-making was minimal.
After the fall of communism, the quotas were abolished and the percentage of women in Parliament dropped down to 12%. From then on the number was changing, at the present time;
the number is around twenty percent. In 1998, there were 16.9% of female candidates for posts in the Parliament; in 2002 this percentage saw an increase of 6% to 23.1%. In the 2006 elections,
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there was a slight decrease to 22.5% of female candidates and in 2010 the decrease continued to 21% of female candidates (http://www.aspekt.sk/info_det.php?IDcentrum=132). When the numbers of female candidates for Parliament are as written, it implies that the number of female politicians who get to the Parliament after the elections is even smaller. After the parliamentary elections of 2010, 15.3% of all the members of Parliament are women (http://www.nrsr.sk/Static/sk-SK/Poslanci/zoznam_volby_2010.html).
Filadelfiová and her colleagues studied possible gender gap in Slovakia based on facts of parliamentary elections in 2002. They claim that although Slovak women obtained voting rights quite early, when the first Czechoslovak Republic was established, and Slovakia signed international agreements about gender equality, there are still differences found in social and political life of men and women (Filadelfiová, Bútorová et al. 2002). From 1990 until 2002 women in Parliament were represented by only 12-15%, and there were only about 10% of women in Government; at one point of time, there were no women in the Government. Authors blame the processes of nominating candidates within political parties, because only parties can decide who will enter the list of candidates, and the parties set the order on the list.
Consequently, the lower numbers in the list of candidates result in lower possibility of entering the Parliament and Government. Normally, only few women actually appear within first ten positions on the list.
Chaloupková (2004) agrees with this conclusion, and she also mentions the underrepresentation of women in Slovak politics. She compares the low presence of women in Parliament and Government with the comparatively high presence of women in political parties, but she also says that many times women themselves give up on politics, because of the fighting nature of politics, or that women are less interested in politics.
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