Less than a third of all candidates in the upcoming regional elections in Slovakia are women, according to the calculation of the SME daily. This number is slightly lower than the one in the last parliamentary elections.
However, women are more successful in regional elections than in national elections. For a clear illustration, in 2012, 16 percent of women were elected to the Slovak Parliament, whilst 22 percent of their female colleagues became mayors of Slovak towns and villages. According to sociologist Silvia Porubanova, this situation probably won't change without temporary quotas for female participation in politics. However, most Slovak politicians are against quotas because they view them as a radical form of increasing the share of women’s participation on the Slovak political scene.
