Women in politics
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Actually, women in Saxon politics never really looked good. Until recently, their share in the state parliament was about one third. The ruling CDU had the lowest proportion of women in all parliamentary groups at 21 percent. After the state election on Sunday, the proportion of female MPs has now dropped further. Only 33 women will move into the Saxon state parliament (27.7 percent). It is the lowest value since 1994.
In Brandenburg, the proportion of women fell even more, by almost eight percentage points: from 39.7 to 31.8. Only 28 women will sit in the Brandenburg parliament - in addition to 60 men.
(How the proportion of women in the past years in the German state parliaments has changed, read here.) Also in local politics, women are still in the minority.)
But why does the proportion of women in both provincial assemblies decline again? On the one hand, conservative and right-wing populist parties tend to have fewer female members - and therefore fewer women are in the running. Above all, they are still rarely placed as direct candidates or placed on promising list places. Especially in rural areas - where well-educated women are the first to leave in many areas anyway. Only 12 of the 60 constituencies in Saxony went to women .
It looks particularly bad for women in the party, which has the lowest percentage of female voters. Among the 60 direct candidates of the AFD only nine women were represented: 15 direct mandates won the party, two women have made it this way in the state parliament, two more on the state list. Thus, the AfD has a total of four parliamentarians. The election successes of the AfD are thus a central reason for the declining proportion of women in the state parliament.
CDU tries to become more feminine - with moderate success
Also with the CDU it does not look better. Only in nine constituencies, a woman came to win the direct mandate. Balanced on the CDU party list, where at least 42 percent of the seats were female occupied. The foremost ten places occupied the party even parity.
Of 119 seats in the state parliament, the CDU won a total of 45. 41 of them are filled with direct candidates. Among them are seven out of the nine women who were running as direct candidates. Three are added via the country list. Out of 45 new members of the Landtag, ten will be female.
On the quoted SPD country list, no gender may be represented with less than 40 percent. There were 36 men and 24 women. However, there were not enough women in the first listings: out of ten, only three went to female candidates.
As forerunners of parity occupied lists above all green and left are valid. But even with them, at least in Saxony, more male applicants for the direct mandates on the ballot papers than female. Only in Brandenburg men and women of the Greens divided the constituencies evenly among themselves.
In the end, women nevertheless made 9 of the 14 seats won by the left. A woman got the only direct mandate. The Greens occupied their twelve mandates with six women. Two of the three direct mandates were taken by women.
Parties in Brandenburg must make an effort for parity law
In Brandenburg, the Greens were one of the decisive drivers of the parity law, which the parliament decided at the beginning of the year. From the summer of 2020, the parties will have to alternately fill their lists of state elections with men and women. For several parties it will be difficult to meet this legal hurdle.
Thus, in this election, 80 percent of the candidates were on the list of AfD men. 73 percent of the CDU, 78 percent of the FDP, and 85 percent of the Free Voters. Only SPD, Greens and Left should get no problems with the future prescribed parity.
The law will have no influence on the established direct candidates. In the constituencies, the parties do not have to pay attention to parity in the future, although only 12 of the total of 44 direct mandates in Brandenburg went to women . As in Saxony, mainly male direct applicants were on the ballot in Brandenburg.
Here, too, especially the strengthened AfD pushes the share of women in the state parliament. Only 18 percent of the direct candidates of the alternative for Germany were female. And although the SPD set up about the same number of men and women as direct candidates, it was mainly Social Democratic men who made the first vote in the state parliament. The Social Democrats now have 25 mandates. But among them are only seven women. In the future, only five women will sit on the 23 seats of the AFD.
In some electoral constituencies, voters had no chance at all to equip a woman with a direct mandate. So in the constituency Prignitz I or Oberhavel I only men.
Parity lists will probably not increase the proportion of women in the state parliament alone. They have effect anyway. If the Greens and the Left had been stronger in the state elections in Brandenburg and Saxony, as predicted in the polls, their parity-filled lists would have largely compensated for the men's surplus in the AfD. With three to four percentage points more for both parties, the proportion of women in the Brandenburg Parliament would have remained similar to those in the previous legislative period.
However, if the proportion of women in parliament is to increase significantly, the parties must not only share their lists on equal terms. They must promote female politicians so that they also compete as direct candidates. The analysis shows: You have good chances to win.