The Issue of Necessity Introducing the System of Gender Quota in the Electoral lists of Political Parties in Georgia

Abstract

Today many states, likeGeorgia, are working to increase women's political representation. To speed up the process Georgian government and civil sector initiated legislative norm in order to encourage political parties to rise women's representation. In 2016 parliamentary election was held under the amended law that included a provision of increased supplementary public funding of 30% to parties that include three women for every 10 candidates on the lists. Unfortunately this initiative did not work inGeorgia. Therefore, we believe that the means of resolving the problem is the introduction of obligatory gender quotas.

Gender quota is one of the possibilities to achieve gender equality. Quotas aim at defending women from political isolation. Because a majority of the world’s population are women, it is logical that this group should have appropriate representation in the decision-making process. This argument gradually started to gain the support in the World; therefore, the quota system for women has been successfully used in almost every country around the world. Several recent studies have shown that the majority of the population supports the idea of increasing the representation of women and the introduction of mandatory gender quotas for political parties.