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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 2
(8 of 21 pages)
Speaker: In this relation of women participation, I am also a member of
the national commission for gender equality of republic of Macedonia. I will be short as usual, and I will say
what I'm usually say to the party leaders and party official. You don't have right to use what I am a democrat,
if you are not promoting women in your political party and in the system, because we have only from 120 MPs, in
the previous parliament we have only four. There is no work for democration (ph). And then we have after the [inaudible]
about the women participation in the election 1998, we increase for 150 percent this mean nine. Now in fact, I
will give a reason what we in Macedonia find out. This [inaudible] is from the manifestation that happens in Macedonia
on 19, Saturday, that's for more women in politic, 2,000 women from the political party came and present the strategy
of action and the declaration that was signed from whole political party leader. First, the quarter system. It
might be sounds very offensive because not all of us came from the system where only the quarters was the system
how to be in the politic quarters of nationalities, quarter of women, and so I don't get it as a quarter, I get
it as a positive discombination (ph). In one moment, when the women will be introduced in the politic, when the
mentality will use to see a women faces in such a dirty job as a politic is, that we will, don't need a quarter.
The second thing is an electional (ph) motto. There is the two difference. If you have a majority election motto,
then women are put on the place where the political party has the worst ranking and they just have prove to the
public they've [inaudible] women even thought the political party leader, if he's in that district, they will lose.
In and according to the survey, proportional system is the best for women but depends on which proportion system.
If you have proportional system when the party is making the list and the waters road for party, then women should
[inaudible] to be in the higher position of the list. Not just to be on the list.
And the third thing is the national plan. As we do all the women from different political parties, sign it and
make contract to stick to this national plan and to be coordinating in the monitoring, how the declaration and
the national plan is applied in the political party. In the same time, Angio is promoting the idea and trying to
control the control what is going on with this national plan and speaking openly in the media how, which party
is not sticking to that. Which is very important. Which is like, which I see as not a good side in our country.
The candidates are promoted five minutes until the end of the, until the deadline and women are usually not well
prepared. We stay for that the candidates should be promote at least one year before then women candidate will
get education, then will be prepared psychologically for the campaign. Then we will do the political polling and
researches how to promote the candidate, and how to break stereotypes in the media. Because nevertheless we can
see a lot of stereotypes. Thank you very much.
Speaker: Elected. I am the member of the political progress party and I am Vice Chairperson of the Democratic
Association of Women on Morocco. I think that this theme is extremely important because the problematic of the
women is at the center of the problematic of democracy and I would like to make an observation concerning the document
that has been distributed to us. It is very good in general however it includes an error that is serious and deserves
being corrected. Because when I speak about women, we speak about participation of groups traditionally in marginalized
such as women and ethnic minorities. In other words women are considered as a group, just like any other ethnic
group where as women constitute a main component of society. In other words society is mainly composed of women
and men as well. Thus the principle of universality of human rights, or even yes human rights in the way its said
in French, this universal character has led to a failure with regard to the participation of women. And I believe
that time is up to reconsider all the principles that used to sound like almost holy, and by introducing the concept
or parity, in other words, equal representation of men and women. I believe that this should not be considered
as an aggression of women against men or even against politicians, however it should be recognized that when we
speak of democracy, it is still the power of the majority and if we undertake an analysis of the social structure,
we find out that it is composed of men, women and children. And usually feminists don't like to say women and children,
but in the daily social reality, it is the reality that the destiny of children is not only linked to the destiny
of women. Thus is women and children are excluded from decision making, if they are excluded from the problematic
of the political management of affairs in other words, democracy as it is exerted in the majority of countries
where we have emerging democracies where women don't participate that much, so we can see that the stake is with
the minority. A minority formed by men in general because even young people are often excluded from the emerging
democracies. So I would like us to be aware of this fact. I agree with my colleague from Macedonia who said that
we can not call ourselves democrats. We cannot speak of democracy unless we become activists in order to reinforce
women's participation and it is important to say that it's not enough to proclaim the principle of political equality
between men and women because I give the example of my country very briefly. We had representation on the level
of the municipal council of 0.33 percent in the 1992 election and in the 1997 election we had 0.34. So it was just
progress of 0.01 percent so if we move at this rhythm, we will become conscious that we need maybe 30,000 years
to reach figure like 30 percent of representation.
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