Political power and a democratic system oriented toward change and reform have, to some extent, consolidated since 1987. Such a reality will have a positive impact on changing the beliefs and attitudes that women have so far held. The core of the 2010 local election strategy of women candidates is to change women and draw out qualitative changes in women's political participation and gender equality.
Of course, women's political participation is not simply a given set in concrete, but rather is the fruit of fierce struggles and considerable effort. When looking at the development stages of countries that are realizing advanced democracy, they all, without exception, went through the process of expanding women's political participation. Our society should also open the era of genuine gender equality through expanding women's political participation to realize mature democracy going beyond the stage of procedural democracy. For this, women’s organizations, academic professionals, and the government should prepare a 『Women’s Participation Roadmap』in detail and pursue it with determination and consistency. As such, measures to expand women's political participation can be considered in both institutional dimensions and as a function of consciousness. From an institutional perspective, the nomination system, election system, and the political party system are the key components. Research results lead us to conclude that the most realistic alternative to enhance women political development and the expansion of political participation is for major political parties to strengthen the quota system for women candidates. Prior to the 2004 general election, the government and opposition parties had reviewed the introduction of the women’s broad district election system. However, this idea was not realized, pushed by public opinion that reverse discrimination of sorts was against the ideals of Constitution. But the more women advance into National Assemblies, the higher the national incomes tend to be and the less corruption there is. Former Prime Minister Tony Blaire of England contributed to eliminating corruption by expanding women's political participation by introducing the women only election district system in the district of high probability of winning where women compete against each other. Under the current united election law, each party is required to allocate 50% to women candidates when recommending proportional representation. Some say there are inherent unconstitutional elements, but this system should be implemented based on national consensus on the realization of gender equality.
Therefore, there is a need to legislate, although for a limited time, so that, also in the district election, each political party would recommend a certain proportion of women. Furthermore, active measures should be reviewed whereby the Central Election Committee rejects the candidate list of political parties in case of violation, rather than a passive measure of reducing the government support paid to political parties. However, “the informal rule of district nomination” should take root under which those women who received excellent review in legislative activities or social activities are given priority consideration as women candidates to be nominated to districts.
In addition, as measures to improve institutions, we can recommend consolidation of a gender friendly system, joint management of elections, institutionalization of election scheduling, expanded implementation of a joint election management system, and reorganization of election districts. If 30% quota system for districts is not implemented, as the second best policy, the restructuring of an election district system should be actively considered.
There are many possible arrangements regarding quota representation. For example, in a small, lightly populated district at least one female representative could be guaranteed. In a somewhat larger district the number could be increased to three to five females.
Through the above example, the implications for future strategies and the tasks for expanding women's political participation and formulating women's policies can be reviewed as follows. First, it is urgent to consolidate institutional devices for women with high political efficacy to move away from political cynicism to actively participate for social change and reform as “the intelligence in action.”
Second, many women's organizations and public opinion leaders should lead a proactive movement so that women can have broad interest in politics and society as a whole. It should be explicitly provided in the Political Party Act that political parties are mandated to run Women’s Political Academy to train competent women politicians and a certain proportion of political party funding should be used for that purpose. And those with political aspirations should be required to acquire certificates by granting the political party nomination rights to those who have completed the Women's Political Academy. Third, it is necessary to develop active and continued process of socialization so that women’s ideology as a frame of reference of the worldview can have a more dynamic nature than before. |
