Electoral gender quotas systems and their implementation in Europe

Table 41. Women’s representation in the National Assembly for Wales, 1999–2007Year Total Labour Conservative Lib. Dem. Plaid Cymru1999 40.0% 57.1% 0.0% 50.0% 35.3%2003 50.0% 63.3% 18.2% 50.0% 50.0%2007 46.7% 61.5% 8.3% 50.0% 46.7%Sources: National Assembly for Wales, ‘Assembly Member Profiles’, 2007,; Squires, Judith, ‘Gender Quotas in Britain:A Fast Track to Equality?’, Stockholm University Working Paper 2004:1 (2004), pp. 11, 12.In the run-up to general elections in 2001, the British Labour Party required gender-balancedshortlists for all vacant seats, which led to only four women being selected out of the 39 candidateschosen to replace sitting Labour MPs (Russell 2003: 77). This meant that the proportion of newcandidates who were women was lower in 2001 than in 1992 and 1997, leading some to concludethat balanced shortlists might in fact have been counterproductive, as they enabled constituencyparties to comply fully with the quota while still selecting men (Squires 2004). Although very fewseats changed between parties, the proportion of women dropped from slightly more than 18 percent in 1997 to slightly less than 18 per cent in 2001 (Russell 2003: 77).The second elections to the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales took place in2003. Although Labour employed only a limited amount of positive action, and other partiesrejected quotas, the percentage of women elected to the Scottish Parliament increased slightly, from37 per cent to 39 per cent. The number of women elected to single-member constituenciesremained stable, while the number of women elected to list seats increased by three (Squires 2004:11). In Wales, Labour did not repeat its twinning policy, but the party did apply AWS in half of itsvacant constituency seats. Plaid Cymru strengthened its requirements for list elections by reservingthe top two seats on all regional lists for women (Russell, Mackay and McAllister 2002). Althoughno other parties changed their candidate selection policies, these shifts contributed to an increase inthe proportion of women elected to the National Assembly for Wales, from 40 per cent to 50 percent (Squires 2004: 12).In 2004, the British Labour Party introduced AWS for local elections. In general, the proportion ofwomen elected to local councils is higher than the proportion elected to the House of Commons, atapproximately 27 per cent. The percentage of women varies significantly across councils, however:while some district and county councils have as few as 15 per cent women, others have as manywomen as men or more (). Perhapssurprisingly, there are only small differences across the parties: 27 per cent of Labour councillorsare women, compared to 31 per cent of Liberal Democrats and 25 per cent among Conservatives(Bochel and Bochel 2008: 5).In the British delegation to the European Parliament, the percentage of women is also higher thanit is at Westminster. Since 1979, when direct elections to the European Parliament were first held,there has been a disparity in these proportions: between 1979 and 1994, women formed between13 per cent and 17 per cent of the British delegation, compared to 3–9 per cent in the House ofCommons. In 1999, the electoral system was changed to PR and the percentage of womenincreased to 24 per cent, where it has remained since 2004. Due to their zipping policy, the LiberalDemocrats elected 50 per cent women. In contrast, Labour elected 37 per cent women and theConservatives only 4 per cent ().Leading up the general elections in 2005, all three parties initiated discussions regarding positiveaction. However, Labour was the only one to adopt a quota, namely AWS in at least half of all seatswhere incumbent Labour MPs were retiring, with the goal of electing at least 35 per cent women.The result was that 20 per cent women were elected to the House of Commons, with marked115