A Woman’s Place is . . . In Parliament?: Women’s group says make room for Armenia’s majority population

An assembly representing 22 political parties and 40 non-governmental organizations held a press conference today in Yerevan to say that it’s high time to make room for women in Armenian politics.

“Armenian women have the potential,” said Ruzan Khachatryan, speaking for the “Women in Leadership” forum. “Simply, women will not consider entering into the dirty political field unless a just mechanism of elections is formed in Armenia.”
Statistics show that women make up 60 percent of Armenia’s population and that 40 percent have advanced education. Yet only seven women hold seats in Parliament (out of 131) and only 15 of 926 villages and towns in Armenia have heads or mayors who are women.

After an eight-month study produced by the National Democratic Institute (USAID), the forum has sent a package of suggestions to the National Assembly, suggesting that Armenia make provisions in its electoral code to offer more representation by women.

“The initiative says at least 25 percent of the candidates in the party election lists presented for proportional vote should be women, instead of the previous 5 percent,” said Khachatryan, a member of the board of the People’s Party of Armenia. “Every fourth candidate on the party election list should be a woman.”
According to Khachatryan, the ruling Republican Party refused to join the initiative, despite the fact the party has a significant number of women among its members.

Khachatryan fears the stand of the Hanrapetakan (Republican) Party will damage the women’s forum’s chances of being heard. The “unfair elections and the dirty mechanisms” that in reality reflect force, violence and fraud, also hinder the widespread participation of women in politics, Khachatryan said. Nevertheless, Khachatryan is hopeful the suggestion will be accepted and women will become more active. She says, given a fair chance, women candidates would have a strong chance of defeating male opponents.

If, already, women had been given their fair proportion of political clout: “Many political issues – from intolerance to corruption, would have changed substantially,” said former Prime Minister, and president of the Christian-Democratic Union of Armenia Khosrov Harutyunyan, who has joined the initiative.

Gayane Mkrtchyan

Published in: ArmeniaNow.com website www.armenianow.com (official translation)