Gender Misbalance in the Electoral Commission

31 May 2005

The �Women and Society� centre from Sarajevo strongly condemned the decision by the State Electoral Commission to fill its ranks not through a public competition, but that the members should be appointed by the Parliament.

The Centre closely follows the process of filling in the three vacant seats in the B&H Electoral Commission. It has warned the Commission and the public, on several occasions, that this would be a great opportunity to repair the dramatic gender misbalance in the Commission, which currently stands at 6:1 in favour of men.

The Centre demands that the provisions from the Gender Equality Law are applied in the process of election of the three new members of the Commission. The Law demands that such important bodies as the Electoral Commission should provide for an equal representation of women. The text of the public competition should be adopted in terms of gender sensibility, to encourage women to apply.

The requests were submitted to the B&H Electoral Commission, the Parliamentary Assembly, its Committee on Gender Equality, the Governmental Gender Centres of the RS and FB&H, all women NGOs, Centres for Civic Initiatives throughout the country, domestic and international human rights organizations, as well as the media.