Prague - Despite constituting more than half of the population, Czech women remain still poorly represented at the political scene.
In regional administrations, there are only 15 per cent of females.
According to Forum 50%, an organization that promotes gender-equal representation in politics, the forthcoming regional elections to be held later this year are not going to improve the situation.
"The 15 per cent representation of women in regions is very insufficient. According to our information, the forthcoming regional elections will have even fewer women listed in the ballots, which would give them a real chance to be elected unlike in previous elections," stated Jana Smiggels-Kavková from Forum 50%.
Women have reached their largest share in the Plzeň region where they constitute 20 per cent of all representatives.
The south Moravian region has 19 per cent of women in regional administration, on the third place are South Bohemian and Liberec region. The fewest female representatives are in Hradec Králové, Zlín and Pardubice regions.
No region has a woman as the regional head, but five of them have managed to become deputies.
Most pro-women? Christian Democrats
From all parties, female politicians for Christian Democratic Party (KDU-ČSL) have the biggest chance to get a post in regional administrations. Currently, 17.8 per cent of mandates of the party belong to them.
Female politicians of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), winner of the last parliamentary elections, have 15.8 per cent of mandates.
"However, it needs to be reminded that this result is due to the party having a large lead in the elections that enabled even female candidates on lower positions on the ballots to be elected," explained Smiggels-Kavková.
Czechs want more female politicians
Three fifths of Czech males and almost four fifths of Czech females think there are not enough women in Czech politics. This is the result of a research commissioned by Forum 50% and conducted by the Public Opinion Research Centre.
The poll took place last year in November when 1,050 adults were questioned.
The poll showed that number of those who see the presence of women in politics as positive grows. On average, 88 per cent of citizens agree that women should be more involved in politics.
Two thirds of males and as much as 8 out of 10 females believe that it is easier for men to get a political position.
But how to make women more involved in politics?
More than one third of the population believes that it would be useful to introduce election quotas that set a minimal proportion of women on elections tickets. These are already used in France and Belgium, in addition there are internal party quotas voluntarily introduced by political movements in Netherlands, Germany, or Great Britain.
Greens leading in nomination of women
The proportion of women listed on ballots of individual political parties is traditionally poor.
In regional elections that took place in 2004, there were only 26 per cent of women represented on the ballots.
The Civic Democrats nominated the lowest number of women - 17 per cent. What made it even worse, was the fact that they were largely listed at lower positions of the ballots.
The second lowest number was on the Social Democrat (ČSSD) ticket. On the contrary, the largest number of women was nominated by the Green Party - more than one third of all nominees.
As for the representation of women in parliament, the Czech Republic is at the 76th position out of 190 states according to the statistics compiled by the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
"Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan have a slightly better score while Burkina Faso, Zambia and Angola are currently ranked below us," noted Lenka Benner, a chairwoman of Forum 50%.
