Recently I found the Eurobarometer survey on “Women and European Elections” (March, 2009). Some of the figures caught my attention. It did not surprise me that EU institutions preparing for the upcoming elections decided to get to know the expectations of female voters better. As the turnout in previous EP elections has shown, women are more passive voters as men. But it seems that not until recent years.
As the survey shows, 45 percent of women in Europe still believe that politics is dominated by men. However, in recent years participation of women in different political activities has increased in all countries.
Source: Eurobarometer, European Election Study 1999 & EP Post Election Survey 2004
Some of the signs are obvious in today’s Lithuania too. In fact, we have never had such a female-dominated election campaign in our country before. Concerning the likelihood of who will be the new Lithuania’s President (elections will be held in May) most chances are given to Dalia Grybauskaite, the current EU Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget. She receives most credits for the open and harsh criticism on the actions and performance of the previous social-democratic government for being incapable and unwilling to predict the approaching economic downturn in the country. This might be the first time when Lithuania will have a female president. There are strong women candidates for the EP in Lithuania too. Their chances to be elected are also considered as very high. Being very conservative and still fighting with post-soviet discriminative attitude towards women’s active role in public life, Lithuania as a country faces the new era when politics is no longer exceptionally the man’s world.
Worth noticing is that European more than national or local political arena is seen as offering better oppurtunities for women participation in Lithuania. Coming back to the previously mentioned Eurobarometer survey, certain differences between the perceptions of women from older and new (East and Central Europe) member states leave many unanswered questions. For example, when choosing a candidate in European elections, 52 percent of Lithuanian and 48 percent Slovenian, Bulgarian and Slovakian women decide it according to the personality of the candidate (EU average is 25 percent). Women from former Soviet countries are more emotional when deciding for whom to vote and among the most ones pleading for higher share of women in the EP. However, women’s knowledge of European politics and turnout in the elections in these countries is still considerably low. Lets see what these elections will show?
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
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