Zulueta: I was struck when I arrived, out of 80 mayors currently in office, only six are women
Channel: Civil
Date: 2021-10-15

Special focus of the interview with the Head of ODIHR Election Observation Mission, Ms. Tana de Zulueta was the gender equality and the women participation in politics. 
CIVIL MEDIA: There are very few female candidates in our elections again. Apart from being very few, for which I would like to ask you to comment, they are also targeted by tremendous hate speech, gender based hate speech, which is targeting the very few female candidates in these local elections. What are your comments on both cases?
TANA DE ZULUETA: Well, one of the things that the ODIHR does look at is the participation of women in political life. And so we try to look at that across the board, to understand, you know, voters, but also candidates, political parties, how engaged are women. At first glance, the picture is not so bleak, because we have a quota system in this country for councils and parliament, which has guaranteed the minimum that the law foresees.  And so on that front, the picture is not so bleak. 
However, when you look at mayors, I was struck when I arrived that out of the 80 mayors who are running currently for office, only six are women. That is a very low figure. Given the importance of the mayor in the political system and the administrative system of the Republic of North Macedonia it is regrettable. 
The number of candidates for mayor reflects the situation, which is not evolving in a positive sense. The parties did not seek out women candidates and they admitted as much candidly to us. We only have out of I think 312 candidates - 25 women. Therefore, these 25 women have to do very well just to keep the 8 percent that we had before. And some of them are clearly put there for a show, if you see what I mean. 
The party that puts them up in some cases knows that they will not win, but they will improve the party’s image. We tried to understand why, and I am sure that you and others in the country would answer that question better than I would. Nevertheless, interestingly, the longer our observers were in the regions, talking to people, visiting the villages, the clear it became that the obstacles to women participation are deep, and they are cultural, as well as economic. 
Often, a male relative accompanied the women candidates that were speaking to us. And often, if there were two people answering the questions, the man spoke, even if the woman was more important in theory. Therefore, we realized that women are up against a lot of obstacles, of those invisible kinds. 
But there is another obstacle that might discourage them, and as you mentioned, the attacks, gender based attacks, on social media in particular. Women are feeling very vulnerable to this. The reputational damage for them, and society, is much. They are more vulnerable than their male competitors are, and their attackers know it, so they go for them. And it is not a pretty spectacle. 
CIVIL MEDIA: What do you think this society, and the institutions, should do?
TANA DE ZULUETA: I think that if there is awareness, and leadership awareness, to lead by example and to speak publically against this on the part of influential and important political leaders, that it must not be just the women complaining, it must be the men complaining. 
CIVIL MEDIA: And probably the institutions they keep the law in their hands and can sanction those that are committing legal violations, and attacking women.
TANA DE ZULUETA: In some cases, the power of these social media is that these can be anonymous, but sometimes not. And interestingly there haven’t been complaints filed because of reluctance of the women themselves to take these cases to court. This is regrettable and it is partly to avoid publicity, I imagine, partly fearing that this would not bring them redress.
Xhabir Deralla
Camera: Atanas Petrovski
Video editing: Arian Mehmeti
Transcription: Natasha Cvetkovska