Zukić: Voters are to blame for the lack of women in politics!?

When the coalition between SDA and SBB was formed on October 19, almost all media in BiH published a photo of Bakir Izetbegović and Fahrudin Radončić signing the coalition agreement, with delegations from their parties standing behind them, reports the Patria News Agency.

The Head of the Council of Europe Office in BiH, Mary Ann Hennessey, commented at the time on her Twitter profile on the fact that there was not a single woman in the photo, meaning that both party delegations consisted exclusively of men.

Two days later, in the Federal Television show "Odgovorite ljudima" (Answer the People), host Jasenka Isović asked the Secretary General of SDA, Amir Zukić, who was also present at the signing of the SDA-SBB agreement, to answer the question posed by Hennessey on her profile.

"We will certainly strive to compensate for these shortcomings, including the lack of women in politics. Voters also play a role... the lists are open and chosen according to the voters' will. Women are the majority voting body and, unfortunately, they do not vote for women," Zukić replied.

However, Zukić's "excuse" of relying on the will of the voters – and specifically, "women who do not vote for women" – is completely nonsensical, given that the party delegations at the signing of the coalition agreement did not consist of election candidates, but of members of party bodies elected at the party congress.

Among them, besides Zukić, were party vice-presidents Šefik Džaferović and Šemsudin Dedić, presidency member Adil Osmanović, and SDA Main Board president Halid Genjac.

The fact that no woman was present at the SDA and SBB meeting does not reflect any accidental "lack of women in politics" caused by voters' choices for candidates on open lists, but rather the party's complete disinterest in ensuring equal representation of women and men in its own bodies.

According to the results of a survey conducted in September 2014, SDA was the party with the lowest percentage of women in its executive bodies. In the SDA Main Board, there were 11.5% women (13 out of 113), in the Presidency only 6.7% (2 out of 30), among the 8 vice-presidents there were no women, while in the Supervisory Board there was one woman out of 5 members (20%).

In the Court of Honour, the percentage of women was 45.5% (5 out of 11), making it the body with the highest representation of women. There were no women in the positions of party President, Deputy President, and Secretary General. The total percentage of women's representation in all the aforementioned party bodies was 12.7% (21 out of 166).

In May 2015, the Sixth Congress of SDA was held, and new leadership bodies of the party were elected, but the representation of women in these bodies did not increase; it even slightly decreased (to 12.5% – 21 out of 168). The number of women in the Main Board, Presidency, and Supervisory Board of the party increased by 1, but decreased by three in the Court of Honour. SDA still has no women in the positions of President, Vice-President, Deputy President, and Secretary General.

The huge disproportion in the representation of men and women is particularly noticeable in the composition of the Delegates for the 6th Congress of the party, where out of a total of 783 people elected to the SDA Congress, only 86 are women. This example also highlights the problematic nature of Zukić's thesis that women are poorly represented in politics because "women do not vote for women."

The delegates of the party congress elect and dismiss all other party bodies, and determine the Party's Program and Statute. The Congress, which according to the SDA Statute is the highest body of the Party, should be composed "according to the criteria of expertise, territorial and national representation, age, gender structure, and contribution to the Party's activities," as stated in Article 25 of the Statute.

However, the SDA Congress not only fails to reflect the fact that women, as Zukić stated, are the "majority voting body," but represents one of the bodies with the lowest representation of women, at only 11%. Therefore, even within the party from which Zukić comes, one cannot speak of the decisive influence of "women's voting" on their election to leadership positions, given that the party's own "voting body" is largely composed of men – even though, according to the party's statute itself, representation should be ensured, among other things, by "gender structure," writes Istinomjer.