Civil society organizations and other actors
ACTION PLAN OF THE UNITED LIST OF SOCIAL DEMOCRATS (ZLSD) FOR IMPROVING GENDER EQUALITY
Pursuant to Article 31 of the Law on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, political par-ties shall adopt every four years a plan, in which they shall determine their position on the issue of balanced representation of women and men; in accordance with this commitment that political parties shall undertake necessary measures for enhancing balanced representation of women and men in the party bodies, candidate lists for local self-government elections and elections to the National Assembly, the ZLSD Presidency adopts the following assessment and Action Plan.
ZLSD adopts the following position on the issue of balanced representation of women and men:
For ZLSD the issue of balanced gender representation in public life and political decision-making at all levels of the process in which it is realized, is one of the fundamental democracy issues.
It is an issue concerning both content and form of democracy: the content, because both wom-en and mwom-en bring into the policy their differwom-ent historical and personal experiwom-ences and oftwom-en have different views on political priorities and the manner how and when to implement them;
their form, because there is no real democracy without balanced representation. This is the reason why women according to ZLSD must not be a discriminated minority, but half of the human race with irrefutable right to balance of power.
The obstacles that prevent women’s equal access to political power are of historical and struc-tured nature and it is possible to eliminate them only with solidarity and joint action by both women and men and by raising awareness on elemental democracy and capacity for action of various political parties.
Since its establishment ZLSD has always exerted efforts in order to improve equal opportuni-ties of women and men within its own ranks and in political and public life in general. Since its establishment ZLSD has always had a specially organized women’s group – 30% and later 40% share for both sexes for the election in all bodies of the Party, where the gender structure enables so, while as of 1995 the same share is also applied in candidate-selection procedures at the local and national levels.
ZLSD has been also consciously increasing the percent of female members proposed for the most responsible governmental and administration roles. ZLSD will continue such efforts un-til formal and full gender equality is achieved.
To this end, ZLSD adopts the following Action Plan:
Strengthening internal democracy in the Party:
1. The Party will ensure in its annual work and financial programmes special funds, and gradually increase the constant funds for unhindered work organization of the Women’s Forum (WF).
2. The Party will strengthen special training for its female members in order to raise their knowledge and self-confidence, mutual solidarity and relationships.
3. The Party will strengthen and introduce regular training of female members and male members of the MF on gender equality
4. The Party will at least once a year during the mandate period organize a special conference on equal opportunities (with assessment of work results and future measures)
5. The Party will strengthen training of all female and male activists, selected female and male candidates for election as well as all female and male officials for joint work in the gender-equality field.
6. The Party will introduce special forms of training for future female candidates, advisors, county officials, MPs, state secretaries and ministers.
7. The Party will equally include in its training activities both female and male members.
8. The Party will in all its election campaigns particularly emphasize the importance of bal-anced gender representation.
9. The Party will monitor all amendments of laws in the light of equal opportunities for women and men and encourage equal status of women and men with special emphasis on equal opportunities concerning employment, education, family policy and social policy.
Media and equal opportunities:
1. ZLSD will particularly encourage the promotion of women in public and media presenta-tions, and take care during press conferences of balanced gender representation.
2. The Party will prepare a HR list of promising women personnel in various fields of social and public life to be promoted in public on the occasion of different professional topics.
3. The Party will always actively promote in public the policy of equal gender representation.
Equal opportunities and candidate-selection procedures:
1. At the next congress the Presidency will propose amendments to Articles 51 and 52, which will reflect the actual structure of the population and the Party, thus also the structure of the national and local lists.
2. When at the head of the Party is the President, the Party shall determine as mandatory that the Vice President is a woman and vice versa.
3. The Party will always apply the zip principle in the EU elections and elections to the National Assembly.
4. The Party will implement the zip principle at the local elections wherever it wins at least 10% of the votes.
For gender equality in the Slovenian policy ZLSD will always:
1. Do everything it can to implement in the electoral and other legislation equal opportuni-ties for women and men and always try to achieve political agreement with other paropportuni-ties 2. The Parliamentary Group and the Party’s ministers will always strive to amend the Electoral
Law in order to eliminate electoral districts with negative impact on equal gender repre-sentation
3. The Parliamentary Group will propose that for all elections based on the proportional sys-tem strict observance of the zip principle shall apply
4. The Party will exercise its best endeavors to prevent in all personnel procedures accumula-tion of political titles, honors and offices (e.g. county and MP roles)
5. In the personnel procedures for membership in Executive Boards of public institutions, the Party will support in case of candidates of equal capacities, the candidate belonging to the minority when these roles are in question
Women Forum in ZLSD
1. Women Forum network will be strengthened again and local network of women’s groups in the Party increased
2. The public will become acquainted at regular press conferences with the position concern-ing the most important social issues with particular emphasis on the gender equality in public life
3. WF will participate in organizing training courses for women, youth as well as the Party network for meeting conditions when gender equality is in question
4. WF will prepare a HR list of promising and successful women in different fields of economic and social life
5. WF members will create conditions for transition of the young and promising activists of MF to WF and ZLSD by direct support, training, registration and HR processes
6. At the local level the WF will pay particular attention to support of young women members in entering into local politics by putting them on candidate lists where they can be elected Proposal prepared by: ZLSD Women’s Council
Chaired by: Alenka KOVŠCA