Family voting

I was waiting for the end of the election process here in Albania before writing my txt. But as far as I can understand it will not end with the creation of the new government nor with the resignation of socialist leader (determined as the principal cause of the lose of left wing in this elections)

Of course I am not writing for this. I would like to announce that we will have 11 women in more as MPs for the next 4 years (21 in total). This is a good thing in terms of numbers but talking about what they will bring in the parliament – this is too early to be judged. Different backgrounds of these women can (should) affect decision making process in the parliament especially for drafting and improving the legislation.

In this case my glass remains half empty because I’m still wondering if these new politician women recruited so unexpectedly (at least for us) by the parties, will be strong enough to resist to the harsh politics. While talking for this achievement in the context of representation of women not so far away, in those areas when they were elected as MPs, rural women are not so lucky. Many of them cannot vote, although by law they have this right. It is still a privilege of the man to vote for the whole family expressing his own political preference.

I was an observer during the last elections in one of the communes of Durres and I was keeping my notes regarding the number of women presented in the voting centre. Often more than two women were accompanied by one or two single men. He was walking in the head of the queue and after him three, four… nine women were walking silent, watching the ground. He was the head of the family the one to decide for all of them; wife, daughters, sisters in law, nieces. They were physically present in the voting centre at least to sign in the voter’s registry while the votes for all of them were putted by him in the voting box.

In some other cases when the woman had to vote by her own her lovely husband was there to support her and to be sure she will not mistake the name of a specific party “misusing” so her vote. Unfortunately these elections were considered very important for Albania who aspires to become an EU member. Achievement of the standards remained an issue of a secondary importance while elections were perceived as the battle among the prime minister and the leader of Socialist Party. When both of them were waiting the results they didn’t forget to mention the standards the citizens and EU countries were waiting but it was to late…