Report on the situation of women in politics in Poland.

In Poland, commencing from the first free and democratic elections (1989), even though the percentage of the female members of the first house of Parliament has increased from 13% to 24% (2011), it has remained virtually unchanged for the last decade (20%, 2001-2007). Larger fluctuations can be observed in the case of the Senate, in which the current percentage of women after the ’soaring increase’ in the year 2001 (23%) has returned to the level from two decades ago (7%). This situation should be improved by the modified election legislation, which has been in force in Poland since 2011, and which makes it obligatory to construct the lists of candidates with the application of quotas – providing no fewer than 35% seats for the representatives of every sex. Until the moment of introducing quotas, some of Polish political parties had been applying quotas, or principles of the positioning of female and male candidates, on the lists of candidates, of their own free will; this is the reason why, in the election in the year 2001, a pronounced increase in the number of the female members of the lower house of Parliament (from 13 to 20%) was observed. An insignificantly higher activity of women in proportion to the nationwide one¹ may be observed in local politics, in which, since 1990s, the number of the female members of local councils has been increasing slowly, but steadily (from 11% in the year 1990 to nearly 25% in the year 2010). Professor M. Fuszara [1997:24] points out that, simultaneously with increase in the participation of women in authorities at a local level, the social acceptance of activities which are intended to benefit this increase is growing². The consequence of that should be increase in the role of women as local politicians³. However, this is not happening because of the correlation between the representation of women in authorities and the level of authority: the higher (communal, county, provincial) the latter is, the smaller the representation of women is [Budrowska 2003:21), which is still being observed. That means that women (as well as young people) are, in a way, a priori eliminated from wielding power. Their chances of participation in local political life as well in the subsequent election to local self-governments (2014) are increasing in connection with the necessity of enforcing the ’quota’ act, favourable for the balanced representation of both sexes in a decision-making process. However, the quota-based solutions themselves if applied in relation to candidates and not accompanied by the support in the form of activities directed on building the political capital of women (strengthening their self-confidence, education in the scope of making public addresses and building image and conducting election campaigns) may be doomed to failure. The best results may be obtained by means of connecting legal mechanisms with the systematic building of changes in mentality, because it is upon activating, promoting and taking advantage of the talents of women in local politics that the degree to which their success will in the future make them likely to make further careers at regional and national levels depends [Sobańska 2003:412 and following]. Analyzing the percentage of female candidates in elections to self-governments in the years 2006 and 2010 in a national scale, it can be noticed that influence upon the structure of the lists of candidates, in elections to legislative and controlling bodies alike, as well as those to the self-governmental executive bodies, was exerted by the dispute about ’the parity’ and ’quotas’ taking place at the Parliament at that time, simultaneously with activities strengthening the competences of women. The evidence for that is a pronounced increase in the percentage of female candidates for positions in authorities, which was the highest (little fewer than 20%) in the case of the provincial assembly. The analysis of these data from the point of view of the largest political parties shows that in the elections to self-government in the year 2010 each and every of political parties (of their own free will) paid more attention to the presence of female candidates on the lists of candidates. In the reviewed categories, in every case (with the exception of the Law and Justice in elections to local executive bodies) a greater heterogeneousness of the lists of candidates was recorded, and, whereas in the Civic Platform, Law and Justice and the Polish Peasants’ Party increase in the number of female candidates was not particularly spectacular (it amounted to fewer than 5%), the Democratic Left Alliance could boasts the progress at the level of even as many as 10% (in the case of the provincial assembly). Each and every of the parties which were investigated (with the exception of the Law and Justice) achieved something unique in the separate types of elections. However, this increase was not reflected in the number of women who gained seats with the exception of participation in power at the lowest level, i.e. in the communes with the population of no more than twenty thousand inhabitants, in which a plurality voting system was in force. In these territorial units, more than 25% of the members of councils are women. A similar percentage of women is also that in the councils of towns and cities having the legal status of counties. In turn, in provincial assemblies and in the councils of communes with the populations larger than twenty thousand inhabitants women constitute only as few as approximately 22% of the members of councils. It is also there that women have the smallest representation in the councils of counties (18%)’⁴. The situation is even worse in the case of the representation of women in the self-governmental executive bodies of power, that means in the capacities of vogts, and the mayors of smaller and larger towns and cities: out of 2471 positions of these kinds, women came to held 221, including: 143 positions of a vogt, 71 positions of a mayor of a smaller town/city and 7 positions of a mayor of a larger town/city⁵. Ipso facto, the representation of them in the self-governmental bodies of executive power amounts to only as few as 9% (the data of the National Elections Commission from the year 2010).

Therefore, as long as the political careers of women are legitimized in accordance with the pattern of the legitimization of the political careers of people from social minorities, it is not possible for us to refer to the equal chances of women and men in political life.