Campaign for more elected women at the general elections in 2006

Necessary education for women from the political parties 

The Union of Macedonian Women Organizations, together with the Department for promotion of gender equality at the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and supported by OSCE in Skopje, started the realization of the campaign for more elected women at the general elections next year. Within the campaign, a conference called “For equal opportunities – more elected women at the general elections in 2006” took place on 23 September.

The conference was attended members from all political parties, women representatives in the Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia, high-ranked political parties representatives, international and domestic organizations as well as the media.

The proposed conclusions contain the need for active engagement of all relevant subjects for presence of more elected women at the general elections next year, for continuous political education of women from the political parties, for strengthening the cooperation between the political parties, CSOs and the trade unions, for passing a law for equal opportunities and its implementation, for consistency in respecting the legal processes regarding the elections, which, among other things, means not accepting the candidate lists where the gender quota of the Law for electing members of parliament in the first and in the second half of the candidate list of the National Election Commission has not been applied. The conclusions also note the need for integrating an amendment in the above-mentioned law that would refer to introducing 30% gender quota for the least represented gender on the list, both in the first and in the second half of the candidate list, and the percentage of women in the lection bodies should be at least 30%. UMWO, as the initiator and bearer of these activities, from their long-term experience and work in the field of political strengthening of women, proposed in this occasion, and the proposal was supported by the OSCE mission, every third place in the candidate lists to be for the candidates of the least represented gender.

On 15 and 16 October, the first of seminar with the women-representatives from VMRO-Narodna took place in Skopje, which is one of the many seminars within the programme “Women can do it – part II – General Elections 2006”. The seminars was realized by UMWO in cooperation with the Department for promotion of gender equality at the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy (MLSP) and the OSCE monitoring mission in Skopje.

 

K.B.