Prague - Three months prior to the regional elections, a civic association Fórum 50% which focuses on increasing political participation of Czech women, announced that only three women would be running for the highest regional position, the regional governor.

According to Forum 50%, Czech women are badly under-represented at all levels of Czech politics - communal, regional as well as national. That excludes them from decision making procedures.

Only two political parties have dared to nominate a female leader for the upcoming election. The Green Party nominated Svatava Štěrbová in the Pilsen region and Kateřina Dubská in Southern Moravia. Social Democrats included former health minister Milada Emmerová on the ballot in Pilsen.

Christian Democrats do not trust women

There are only 15 percent women active in regional politics. Political scientist Jana Smiggels Kavková thinks that the representation of women in local politics will slightly increase after the election.

"If it goes up, it will mainly be due to the Communists, Social Democrats and the Green Party. The Civic Democrats and Christian Democrats are actually lowering the number of their women in regional politics," said Kavková.

The party that has downsized their female ranks most radically is the Christian Democrats. They nominated 18.5 percent of women in last elections, but this year they will nominate only half of them. That is very disproportional because women make up 52 percent of the KDÚ-ČSL party.

There will be less women running for ODS and even for the Greens than during the last election. But the Green Party remains the most women-friendly party with the highest percentage of female candidates. ČSSD and KSČM both nominated more women now than in the previous election.

Problematic ballots

The Czech Republic placed 73rd on a chart on representation of women politics according to the Interparlamentarian Committee. In local politics, about a quarter of politicians are women, in parliament it is only 15.5 percent and in the regions 15 percent.

"The elections are in many cases decided already by the order on the ballots. But many female politicians say that the process of building a ballot is often not transparent and women are often disadvantaged," says Kavková. Fórum 50% claims that introducing quota would help.

"Women are more disadvantaged inside the party then in the executive. They do not have enough time to sit around at meetings and travel around local party centers. Quotas are for that reason interesting and worth considering," says Jitka Chalánková (KDU-ČSL), a councilwoman from Olomouc.

"I have experienced that men often discuss things openly when they go out for a beer. Work "gets done" there easily. I rather hurry up to get home where I am expected to carry out other responsibilities, in other words it is my next shift," says Jana Fischerová (ODS) a councilwoman from the Vysočina region.

Fórum 50 % director Lenka Bennerová says that women are handicapped in politics because their parties do not enable them to coordinate their family duties and work.

"And second of all, there are much less of them, so it is hard for them to build coalitions and promote their interests," says Bennerová.

Women on the ballots of 2008 regional election

ODS (Civic democrats)
o Percentage of women in the first ten nominated - 12.3 %
o Number of women in first five nominated - 9
o Number of women in first ten nominated - 16

KDU-ČSL (Christian Democrats)
o Percentage of women in the first ten nominated -10 %
o Number of women in first five nominated - 6
o Number of women in first ten nominated -13

SZ (Green Party)
o Percentage of women in the first ten nominated - 26.9 %
o Number of women in first five nominated - 17
o Number of women in first ten nominated - 35

ČSSD (Social Democrats)
o Percentage of women in the first ten nominated - 19.2 %
o Number of women in first five nominated - 10
o Number of women in first ten nominated - 25

KSČM (Communists)
o Percentage of women in the first ten nominated - 25.4 %
o Number of women in first five nominated - 14
o Number of women in first ten nominated - 33