Number of women deputies drops to 10pct

THE Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS) yesterday voiced its disappointment over the small number of women elected in parliament in Sunday’s elections.

Just six women out of 98 female candidates succeeded in winning a seat in the 56-member legislature, two fewer than the previous parliamentary election held in 2006.

The total number of candidates was 412.

Three of the new female MPs come from AKEL while DISY, DIKO and EDEK elected one each.

EDEK MP Roula Mavronicola’s election has been challenged by two other – male — candidates from her party who have asked for a recount of the votes.

It had been Sunday’s tightest battle, with just a few votes separating the three.

“The fact that the six elected women MPs make up 10 per cent is very disappointing compared with the previous election,” MIGS said.

MIGS also stressed that throughout the campaign, serious issues affecting people’s lives like equal pay, violence against women and reconciling family and professional life, were drowned by the Cyprus problem, the economy and migration.

And “in most cases the women’s voice was absent from these discussions,” MIGS said. “How can you achieve the systematic participation of women in politics when they were almost invisible in issues traditionally considered to be ‘male’, like the Cyprus problem the economic crisis.”

It was not however all bad news as the 18 new MPs have cut the average age from 54 to 51-years-old, according to daily Politis.

DISY has the youngest and the oldest MPs – 31-year-old Efthimios Diplaros and party chief Nicos Anastasiades, 64.

DISY can also boast the youngest parliamentary team with an average age of 49. They are followed by AKEL, 50, DIKO, 52, EDEK, 54 and EUROKO, 62.

Sole Green Party MP Giorgos Perdikis is 49.

The new parliament will also see the number of lawyer-MPs drop as eight out of the 17 in the old parliament have either failed to get re-elected or have retired while only one secured a seat in Sunday’s election.

 

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