Women in Politics in Slovenia

Slovenia is one of the newer European states. This year we marked the 22nd anniversary of the independence declaration. It joined the European Union in 2004. 

 

Over twenty years of establishing and consolidating the new government institutions is at the same time a period of more or less intensive efforts to enhance the political power of women. With the first multi-party elections, the share of women, who in the previous system used to participate in the decision-making bodies, dropped dramatically. In the Socialist Republic of Slovenia's Delegates' Assembly before 1990, the share of women amounted to 24%, yet during the 1990 multi-party elections it dropped to 12% in the newly elected National Assembly. 

 

During the transition processes when social, economic and value systems were changed in their core, women in Slovenia lost more economic and social gains of socialism compared to men. They were almost completely ousted from power politics 

institutions. Men conquered the newly established political parties; when the ninety member RS National Assembly was convened for the first time in 1992, only 12 female members or 13.3% held seats. 

 

In the analysis of the current situation, we examined in more detail the state of women's representation in politics, namely at three levels: 

- European level (European Parliament – Slovenian female and male members) 

- National level 

o President of Slovenia 

o RS Government (prime ministers-male/female, vice prime ministers-male/female and ministers-male/female) 

o RS National Council 

o RS National Assembly (presidents-male/female, as well as female and male members) 

- Local level 

o Mayors and mayoresses 

o Municipal female and male councillors 

 

Besides women's representation, we were also interested in measures on gender parity that have already been implemented in the legislation, as well as other measures, and we were thinking about potential further steps. 

 

 

So far all these mechanisms, as well as the measures whose encouragement, creation and implementation were accompanied by the civil and political engagement of women, have not more decisively contributed to the reduction of an explicit democratic deficit in accomplishing gender equality.