Shevolution™ Training Handout (SHE 15)
Prepared by Lesley Abdela for Shevolution™
Equalising Action, Affirmative Action, Quotas
In politics and public appointments, the fastest way to overcome hundreds of years of cultural, religious
and social traditions that prevent women taking an equal role can be for political parties or governments to
introduce a form of statutory equalising action.
Equalising Action/Quotas in Political Parties
In an increasing number of countries political parties have chosen voluntarily to introduce
statutory ‘equalising actions’ to increase their number of women parliamentary candidates. Parties have
usually agreed to take action as a result of strong lobbying campaigns from women’s organisations and NGOs.
UK
For the 1997 General Election the British Labour Party ring-fenced 50% of their future winnable seats for female
candidate-only shortlists. The total number of women in Parliament increased from 63 to 120 and the Labour
women in Parliament increased from 37 to 101.
British Liberal Democrats have a rule that in each constituency at least one-third of the short-list of
candidates must be men and at least one-third must be female.
The Zipper
The Liberal Democrats were the first British political party to introduce the zipper system for elections
to the European Parliament. The result was that in the 1999 European Election the Liberal Democrats had 5
men and 5 women elected to the European Parliament.
A selection of political parties in countries such as Scandinavian countries with a list system of voting
by proportional representation use the ‘zipper system’. Under the ‘zipper system’ the names of women
and men alternate equally in the critical top positions of the Party list of candidates in the election:
- Man
- Woman
- Man
- Woman etc
The zipping system is commonly used by the Swedish parties to achieve gender balance amongst their
elected representatives. This system is used by five parties (four of which are included in the table),
with differing degrees of rigidity. The party which has given the policy the most formal status is
the Social Democrats. The precise operation of the system varies among the party branches operating
in the 26 electoral districts. Selection of candidates takes place at a delegate congress for
the district. In some districts members vote on separate male and female lists, which are merged
to produce a zip list (this was the system used by the Liberal Democrats for the European election
in 1999). In other districts each candidate is elected individually, starting with the candidate who
will head the list. Thus if a man is selected first, a woman should be selected next, and vice versa.
The Green Party uses a similar system.
Twinning Constituencies (Used in Scotland and Wales)
For the first elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly the Labour Party used a system of
selecting their candidates by ‘twinning’ neighbouring seats. They took into account the ‘winnability’
of the seats, so that each pair would select one man and one woman. This opportunity was uniquely possible
because the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assemblies were new legislatures with no incumbent members.
Under the twinning system, the members of the two constituencies come together for the purposes of selecting
candidates. Party Members have two votes - one for a woman and one for a man. The man and woman with
the most votes are selected. Between them they agree who should have which seat.
The detail of the system was carefully designed in order to make it difficult for a disgruntled member to
lodge a legal challenge on the basis of discrimination. As a result of the twinning system, 48% of
Labour members elected to the Scottish Parliament, and 54% elected to the Welsh Assembly, were women.
The same system was used again for the elections to the Greater London Assembly in May 2000, where
four of the nine Labour members elected (44%) were women.
Belgium
Belgium was one of the first countries in Europe to employ a Statutory Quota - a system requiring
parties by law to put forward a minimum percentage of women candidates. In 1994 Belgium passed a law
that there should be a minimum of 25% women on all party lists for election. This increased to 33% in 1999.
If a party does not meet the quota it is required to leave the remainder of the seats on the list vacant.
Despite this law, women’s representation in Belgian politics is not high because the Statutory Quota
does not state where women must be placed on the lists. Parties may therefore place enough women on the
lists to fulfil the quota, but put them predominantly in unwinnable positions (near the bottom of the list).
Currently 23% of MPs are women. Belgians are now considering whether the law should in future enforce
zipping for electoral lists.
Canada
In 1985 in Canada the New Democratic Party established an objective of 50% women candidates for federal
elections. The party constitution has a mandatory policy that 50% of all party federal executives and
50% of members of party federal committees must be women and that either the Party President or
the Party Deputy President must be female.
The Commonwealth
In November 1996 there was a meeting of the Commonwealth Ministers responsible for Women’s Affairs.
Ministers supported the principle of positive and/or affirmative action which was endorsed by the Commonwealth
Heads of Government in Auckland in 1995 as part of the Commonwealth Plan of Action on Gender and
Development, to increase women’s participation in decision-making.
France
The French government have just passed a radical law to increase the numbers of women in elected office
at all levels. France has historically been near the bottom of European rankings of women in parliament.
Currently just 11% of members of the Assemblée Nationale are women.
In 1982 a Socialist government passed a law setting a quota of 25% women candidates for local elections.
However, a complaint was made to the Constitutional Council and later that year the law was struck down on
the basis that it breached the constitutional right to equality. Little progress was made on women’s
representation in French politics for almost two decades after that.
In 1999 a constitutional amendment was passed, with the support of Gaullist President Chirac, which inserted
a new clause stating that ‘The law will encourage equal access for women and men to political life
and elected posts’. This opened the way for the government to pass a new electoral law, without
fear of the Constitutional Council, and this was achieved in May 2000.
The new electoral law regulates the proportion of women candidates at local, regional, national and European
elections. It stipulates that for all elections using PR list systems (including local and regional
elections, some elections to the Senate, and European elections) parties must put forward lists
which are gender balanced.
If lists are submitted which are not gender balanced, they will be declared invalid. This rule will first
apply for the local elections in March 2001. Also, lists for European and Senate elections must be zipped.
In other elections, including those to the lower house, parties are required to put forward a gender-balanced
slate of candidates, or pay a financial penalty. A party putting forward 49% of candidates of one
sex and 51% of the other pays no penalty. But if the discrepancy is any greater than this,
the party’s state funding will be cut by an amount equalling half the percentage difference. Thus
if a party puts forward 45% women and 55% men - a difference of 10% - it will lose 5% of its state
funding. This system offers a strong incentive for parties to comply. It will apply for elections to
the lower house of parliament in 2002.
Germany
The German lower house is elected using an Additional Member System (AMS). This is a similar system to
that used for elections to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Greater London Assembly (UK),
but with a higher proportion of list candidates. Half the members are elected from constituencies
and half from party lists. A similar system is used for elections to German state-level assemblies.
Three of the main German parties use some kind of quota for selection of candidates. They only apply
the quota to list seats. The Greens have the highest representation of women, currently at 57%.
This is a result of their 50% quota, and the fact that they tend to win only list, not constituency,
seats. The Christian Democrats use a less rigid system of quotas for electoral lists, set at 33%
(ie. every third candidate on an electoral list), and achieve women’s representation of 19.5% in the Bundestag.
In the Social Democratic Party (SPD), a quota system was introduced in 1988. It was on a sliding scale, with
the target of 25% women in parliament by 1990, 33% by 1994 and 40% in 1998. The party has not achieved
this target - current representation is 35%. This is largely as a result of electoral success and
the party’s high number of constituency members. Selection of candidates for constituencies is run
by local parties and, despite exhortation from the federal party to select women, there is no form
of quota system in operation for local parties. In total 31% of the party’s 212 constituency members
are women. Additional member lists for the national parliament operate at the state level, and
are thus selected by state parties. A list is proposed by the executive of the state party to a
meeting comprising delegates of local parties. The 40% rule requires that the lists should be
zipped, but with freedom to allocate every fifth place to someone of either gender. Amongst
the SPD’s 86 list members in the Bundestag, 45% are women.
India
In 1993 the Indian Parliament passed the Karnatake Panchayat Raj Act stipulating at least
one-third of all seats on the Panchayats - local councils - must be women. The Indian Prime
Minister recently tabled a similar Bill for Parliamentary representation.
Italy
In Italy a law was passed in 1993 requiring parties to use the zipping system for elections using
list systems. The law stated that ‘male and female candidates will appear alternately’ for the list
part of any election. However, in September 1995 the Constitutional Court repealed the law, saying it was
unconstitutional, on the basis that it contravened Article 51 of the constitution, which states that
‘All citizens of either sex are eligible for public offices and for elective positions on conditions
of equality, according to the requisites established by law’.
This matter is currently still unresolved. A joint committee of both houses of parliament
reported in 1997 on proposals for far-reaching constitutional reform. Amongst its recommendations
was the addition of words in the constitution stating that ‘the law promotes balance between the sexes
in elected representation’. The intention of this would be, as has happened in France, to overturn
the previous ruling of unconstitutionality and allow a new quota law. However, the report of the
commission has not been implemented and no separate action has yet been taken on this point.
Uganda
In Uganda the new constitution guarantees women at least one-third of local council seats.
Much of the information in this handout on the systems in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy,
Sweden and the UK was sourced from:
"Women's Representation in UK Politics: What can be done within the Law?" by Meg Russell (June 2000)
Price £10.00, available from:
The Constitution Unit
University College London
29/30 Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9QU
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit
email: constitution@ucl.ac.uk
Further information can also be found from:
Interparliamentary Union
Commonwealth Secretariat – Gender and Youth Affairs Division
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