My response to your question is based on the insight in the dynamism of women struggling for their share of political power in local politics in the South Eastern European region - in Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, but the situation is not much better or different also in the CEE, in the former transition countries, which are now mostly full members of the European Union (three Baltic states - Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland).

Transitions from communist or socialist regimes to the democratic free market regimes, regardless of the type of transition (by shock therapy, go and stop, step by step reforms or by wars) were characterized by the exclusion of women from all levels of political decision making. This exclusion was more obvious at the national level, in a very modest number of women visible in the party leaderships, small numbers of women MP-s and women ministers in the national governments, but it was not less thorough at the local political levels. It is important to understand, that the endeavor of engendering politics and of the formulation of concrete gender equality policies at any level of post socialist societies had to start from the strife for the equality of women in political decision making bodies.

This strife could not have been started from the local level up, but in all the cases it had to be started from the national level down. Cross cutting coalitions for equal representation of women in politics were made by the women NGO networks which were better developed in the capitals, and by very few gender aware women activists in the leaderships of mostly social democratic or liberal democratic parliamentary parties and in the biggest trade unions, which started to organize women party organizations and women networks within TU from the mid nineties.

Young democracies, born out of the fall of communist and socialist regimes and very difficult transitions to the parliamentary democracy and free market economy, are also characterized by three typical features: New independent states are mostly small - their populations vary between 10 million (Hungary, Serbia) and 600.000 people (Montenegro). The only exemptions are Poland with 48 million, and Romania with 24 million of inhabitants.

In communist times most of these countries used to have highly centralized state administration - here the exemptions were republics and autonomous regions of former socialist Yugoslavia, but after the change of political systems, in all of them, their state administrations became totally centralized and the primary level of local governance - communes, became absolutely powerless and mostly very small administrative unites, with no impact on the daily life of the people whatsoever, especially out of the capitals, bigger cities and towns. In all post socialist societies all politics became dominated by so called big themes - national suzerainty and privatization of the state or public property, and local politics became totally dominated by the power balance on the national political level. Whatever is possible to be done on the local level depends entirely on the good, mostly personalized connections with the decision makers in the national governments. These governments are still mostly composed of men and mostly connected with informal male political networks on the local levels. Clientelism is the way of doing local politics in post socialist countries, which by definition makes local politics too hostile to women and highly ignorant and resistant to women needs and priorities in politics.

New nation wide women movements, striving for gender equality in political decision making, developed also through their systematic regional coordination from 1994 till today were most successful in the Baltic countries (with the support of the Social democratic Nordic women's organizations and CEE Network for Gender Issues) and even more in the SEE (with the combined support of the Social democratic Nordic women's organizations, CEE Network for Gender Issues, Stability Pact Gender Task Force and different international governmental actors). In the SEE region,after 2000, where these new women movements succeeded to enact different quota regulations for the elections on all levels, (in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Kosovo, in Serbia, in Macedonia and in Slovenia), the percentage of women councilors has risen from less than 5 to around 20%. But the women's share of the mayors, who mostly hold the little political power that exists on the local level, and where the quota rules are not enacted,is still below 5%.

The first concrete policies connected with the promotion of gender equality which have been developed in the post socialist countries were not developed at the local level, but on the national level, mostly in close connection with the international support: policies against domestic violence against women, against trafficking in human beings, against sexual harassment at work. In the last years, nation wide crosscutting networking and growing numbers of women parliamentarians with clear perception of women human rights led also to some very important policy victories in some countries of the SEE region: rather generous paid family leave was not curtailed in BiH,in Serbia in Macedonia, in Montenegro , pension reforms were not made so strictly on the backs of women workers in Slovenia and in Macedonia, publicly subsidized prevention of women reproductive heath was improved (for example in Macedonia).

On the local level women in politics have much more difficult situation: local women NGO-s are less numerous and weaker, local party and TU leaderships are even more macho than the ones on the national level. It is much more difficult to form cross-cutting issue women's coalition on the local level or to find international support for local campaigns and lobbying activities. So the success of women in engendering politics on the local level depends heavily on the ability of women in local politics to be a part and parcel of the coordinated activities of the national women's movements, and of the process of democratization and opening of their political parties or trade unions. For this moment, and this will be like this for some years to come, in all post socialist countries, the progress of women in local politics still depends on the international support to the new nation wide women's movements and their ability to develop nation wide joint women campaigns on specific gender equality issues, helping women on the local level to make local governments also to deal with concrete gender equality issues on the level of local communities.

Overall power of women in politics in the post socialist countries unfortunately is still not at the level where they could trigger two of the most important processes of them all: the process of real decentralization of state power, the establishment of the local self governance with real potential (mandate and material means) to take over the responsibilities of taking care of the everyday needs of the local inhabitants, and the process of internal democratization of parliamentary parties and representative trade unions. These two reforms should be in the focus of the new women's movements in the post socialist countries. Active women in the post communist countries are well educated, well informed, highly rational and result oriented. They do not use their energy in the activities with no prospect of real success. This is why socially active women are even more reluctant to enter into local than into national politics. But this is also the Catch 22 situation: if women with women human rights agenda are not becoming stronger and stronger in politics on the local level, pushing for major changes in our political systems also from the bottom up, there is a serious danger that that the range of action of this kind of women activists on the national level will also be shortened and sooner or later, new women politicians on all levels of political decision making will be either co-opted into the male style of doing politics, into the business as usual politics, and they will forget about transformative politics altogether, or the ones, with the agenda of transformative politics, will be simply sidelined and eliminated form the political process also on the national level. This is why every nation wide campaign on specific gender equality issue has to bear in mind the need to be planned in a way to strengthen the power of women in politics on the local level.

Sonja Lokar
Chair of the Stability Pact Gender Task Force