Launch of the brief policy analysis: “Cost of Inequality: Funding for Election Campaigns of Women Candidates”

07.09.2021

Democracy for Development Institute launched the paper, “Cost of Inequality: Funding for Election Campaigns of Women Candidates,” where the findings about the lack of financial support for the election campaigns of women candidates for MPs in the parliamentary seats were presented.

Survey findings show that 75% of respondents do not receive any financial coverage for car fuel during campaign trips, and only 25% of women have access to political entities’ cars to use for campaign meetings. 75% of respondents feel discriminated against within political entities in the process of allocating human and financial resources during the election campaign.

The conference was attended by the Ambassador of the United Kingdom, Nicholas Abbot, who stressed that this time there are only 13 candidates out of 167 in total in the list of candidates which shows that more needs to be done in this regard.

The director of D4D, Rezarta Delibashzade Krasniqi, has called on political entities to draft internal regulations for equal budget allocation, to have equal space in the campaign, even more representation of women, in the election campaign, in public debates and in the media and equal representation on the voter lists in the upcoming elections, as well as citizens, to vote more women in these elections.

From the discussion between the panelists, it was agreed that the financing of women for the election campaign is one of the issues of our complexity as a society, but this is not a reason to step in and accept that it is just a global trend. So far the financial support of women is and remains symbolic.