According to the gender quota law, women should occupy at least 30% of local Kenesh seats. But, in reality, the parties have few female candidates, and the ones who they have listed are just used to fill the gender quota. Regardless, some women have managed to get involved in politics, but they face intense pressure from men. Why does this happen? Kloop has answers.
Chynara Boitoeva lives in Batken with her four young children. In the spring of 2020, she became an observer of her city’s Kenesh election for Kloop in order to add an extra 5,000 soms to her family budget. She underwent training, she passed the final test, and on election day she arrived at the polls where a surprise awaited her. It turned out that Chynara could not be an observer because she was already a candidate from the Zamandash party.
In 2019, Kyrgyzstan adopted a gender quota law: now women must occupy at least 30% of the seats in every local Kenesh.
Not all political forces were ready for this. In some parties, there still are not enough female candidates; others do not want women involved at all. To meet the quotes, they resort to deception—they add women to their list of candidates, often without these women’s knowledge.
How did Chynara end up on these lists? Several weeks before the elections, a neighbor offered her a job as a campaign worker. Chynara agreed at first and even sent him copies of her passport and diploma, but then she declined since the position was not paid. However, the Zamandash party, which Chynara was not involved with, added her name to their election list.
“I didn’t fill out any applications to be a candidate. I worked so hard, undergoing training and taking the test [to become an independent observer for Kloop]. In the end, my efforts were in vain even though I’m not guilty of anything,” says Chynara.
Chynara sought help from the party, but they told her they had used her information to fill the woman quota. But the election commission, which prevented Chynara from working as a poll observer, was advised by representatives from Zamandash to say that she “hadn’t understood and thought she would be added to the campaign list.”
The Party Wins, and the Women are No Longer Needed
Another incident when political parties used women to be a part of the local Kenesh happened in Osh. After the elections in Osh, 69 women applied to leave the Ata-Jurt Kyrgyzstan and Bizdin Kyrgyzstan political parties. And they were all approved by the regional elections commission. Additionally, in the Central Election Commission, decisions were reached about the early termination of the parliamentary powers of six deputies from the two aforementioned parties in Osh’s city Kenesh—five of whom were women.
“I don’t know why they’re leaving, probably due to family reasons. I, for example, am not leaving. Everyone has a right to leave the party,” said Hulkar Isamova, a female deputy from the Ata-Jurt Kyrgyzstan party, when commenting on this decision.
In the end, the Central Election Commission reversed the decision of Osh’s Regional Election Commission about the mass exit of female deputies and candidates from the party. “The simultaneous exit of a large number of women from political parties seems dubious to the Central Election Commission,” said Tynchtykbek Shainazarov, a member of the Central Election Commission.
Why are gender quotas even necessary?
A quota is a temporary measure that creates more equal conditions for men and women in oblasts where gender inequality is traditionally present. They are used in developed countries, like France and Great Britain, as well as in developing regions with traditionally patriarchal ways of life. In Central Asia, there are gender quotas in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
There are also certain countries where women hold a majority in parliament.
Along with directly confronting gender inequality, quotas solve corresponding social problems. For example, in 2012 Kyrgyzstan switched to a two-tier budget, according to which local Kenesh deputies are the ones who make decisions about the distribution of the regional budget. The active participation of women in this decision making is directly linked to acknowledging the interests of socially vulnerable groups: children, pensioners, low-income families, and people with disabilities.
Before Kyrgyzstan adopted a gender quota law, there had been a steady decline in the number of women deputies in the Aiyl Aimagy Keneshes. Consequently, from 2004 through 2010, the number of female deputies was almost halved—from 19% to 10%.
Quotas fixed the situation: according to the spring 2021 election results, the number of elected women nearly quadrupled. However, in Kyrgyzstan there are practically no cases where more than the established 30% of women were in local Keneshes. The amount of women met the quotas in only seven of 28 cities.
Along with directly confronting gender inequality, quotas solve corresponding social problems. For example, in 2012 Kyrgyzstan switched to a two-tier budget, according to which local Kenesh deputies are the ones who make decisions about the distribution of the regional budget. The active participation of women in this decision making is directly linked to acknowledging the interests of socially vulnerable groups: children, pensioners, low-income families, and people with disabilities.
Before Kyrgyzstan adopted a gender quota law, there had been a steady decline in the number of women deputies in the Aiyl Aimagy Keneshes. Consequently, from 2004 through 2010, the number of female deputies was almost halved—from 19% to 10%.
Quotas fixed the situation: according to the spring 2021 election results, the number of elected women nearly quadrupled. However, in Kyrgyzstan there are practically no cases where more than the established 30% of women were in local Keneshes. The amount of women met the quotas in only seven of 28 cities.
All of this attests to the fact that, in spite of positive changes, women do not feel like they are fully equal participants in Kyrgyzstan’s political landscape and frequently face pressure from men.
“Stop your wives”
Due to quotas, women have entered the local Keneshes after receiving fewer votes than men. This led to a conflict in the village of Orok in the Chuy Oblast. After the April 11, 2021 elections, male candidates gathered at the polling place and demanded the removal of two female candidates from the list of winners.
“[Husbands] who can’t restrain their wives, you’re hiding behind their skirts. If you have the strength, stop your wives!” they proclaimed.
Other candidates expressed dissatisfaction by complaining to the Central Election Commission. In the village of Orozbekov in the Kadamjaisky region, an unsuccessful male candidate filed a complaint regarding the Regional Election Commission’s decision to put a female candidate in power instead of him to satisfy the quota.
“My rights and the rights of my electorates are being violated in the crudest way. The Constitution prescribes women and men the same rights. This gender quota law contradicts the Constitution,” he wrote.
A total of six unsuccessful male candidates filed similar complaints regarding the quotas for women. The Central Election Commission rejected all six of them, since the women had been elected according to the gender quota law.
“People prefer to vote for men”
“People think women aren’t capable of doing big things. But I believe that women are tougher and more persistent. Women are more sensitive to important issues,” says Kaliman Sharshekeeva, a deputy from the Aiyl district of Lama in the Jumgal region.
Kaliman worked as an elementary school teacher for 20 years and raised four children. After retiring, she opened the first daycare in her village, which she ran until spring 2021 when she first decided to participate in elections.
“Before, I had been too busy with life, kids, housework. Now my children are grown up, and I feel that it’s time to work and prove myself,” explains Kaliman.
Kaliman says that her fellow villagers did not react negatively to her intention to run for deputy. Although she did hear conversations about how “women aren’t capable of solving problems.” But Kaliman’s experience has shown her the opposite. It was her who decided to start a daycare from scratch when there was not one in her village.
“When I opened the daycare, my relatives said, ‘Don’t waste effort on that, you won’t be able to do it. It would be better to work peacefully in your school. What are you going to do if people won’t send their kids to your daycare, and it gets closed?’” She remembers, “But I insisted and got my way. Now my sisters are still surprised that I was able to.”
In addition to Kaliman, two more women entered the local Kenesh—the school’s headmaster and a teacher. And it happened largely thanks to quotas. “People prefer to vote for men, it would be a lot more difficult for us without quotas,” Kaliman explains.
There’s a lot of work ahead for these female deputies. “I want to solve the problems of families in my village who live below the poverty line. There’s not clean water here, so I want to run a water line to our village. I would also like to have a park in our village, so our residents could relax and children could play there,” says Kaliman about her primary objectives.
Authors: Gulzar Maratbek kyzy, Ayana Sydygalieva, Aizirek Almazbekova, Aigerim Kazybaeva
Translated by Taylor Wilson from Respond Crisis Translation.