[Hungary, 29 July 2013]
Following an initiative of the Hungarian Women’s Lobby all three Hungarian women’s NGO umbrella groups signed a common statement called “Women’s political participation is a democratic value” for increasing women’s political participation, with regard to the elections in 2014.
Since the transition to democracy, representation of women in the Hungarian Parliament has hovered around 10%. Women’s parliamentary representation is 9.35% at the moment, a number which makes it the lowest in Europe. But in 2014 three elections will be held in Hungary: Parliamentary elections, European Parliamentary Elections and local governmental elections.
With these three elections in view Hungarian women’s NGOs have made the following recommendations for all political parties running in the 2014 elections:
- Express unambiguously that they recognize gender equality, women’s human rights, and in this framework the participation of women in political and public life as a democratic value and support it.
- Introduce measures in their own parties guaranteeing that the national list submitted to the 2014 parliamentary elections follows the principle of parity, i.e. the equal representation of women and men, on condition that women and men candidates are presented alternately on the party list.
- Introduce other measures for the support of women candidates, such as organising training courses, seminars, establishing mentor programs or support networks, as well as guaranteeing sufficient visibility for women candidates in the campaign.
- Introduce parity on their lists submitted to the elections in the European Parliament as well.
- Elaborate their plans for the promotion of gender equality and for the enforcement of women’s human rights in their party programs and in their statements made during the campaign, reflecting the requirements of the respective international norms and recommendations as well.
In addition to the above, they also emphasised the importance of increasing the number of women among the candidates for individual constituencies in the 2014 parliamentary elections, as well as later on among the candidates running for the local government elections.
The ceremonial signature took place on a press conference open to the public. The chairperson of the Hungarian Women’s Lobby, Borbála Juhász called Serap Altinisk of the European Women’s Lobby for a Skype conference, so the new parity campaign of the European Women’s Lobby was also introduced to the public in Hungary.
More information in Hungarian
