Vice President Annette Lu this morning attended a tea party celebrating the founding of an international female professional organization based in Taiwan, and hoped that the organization will form a talent pool drawing wisdom from women professionals to seek for all women of Taiwan maximum benefit and welfare. The Vice President also expressed her views concerning the year-end "three-in-one" elections concluded last weekend.
Vice President Lu said that this international women professional association, composed of outstanding women who have demonstrated expertise in their respective fields and Taiwanese key members in international women organizations, is aimed at providing a platform for women leaders to share, exchange experiences and ideas, making their voices be heard so the society can pay more attention to women.
The Vice President took the year-end elections just finished as an example, noting that among the 77 candidates participating in the elections of city mayors and county magistrates, 68 of which are men while the other nine are women. Twenty-one of the 23 posts as chiefs are given to men, while the other two are handed down to women. In the township chief elections, 707 of the contestants are men who have grabbed 294 of the total 319 positions. The rest 25 posts as chiefs are vied by some 80 women. With regard to city and county councilors elections, 667 of the 1,290 men joining in the elections are elected. Some 403 women also joined in the city and county councilors elections, among them 233 got elected, which account for 35 percent of all elected candidates. Results in all elections showed that women participation in politics has not been high. Despite that, the 35 percent of women winning the city and county councilors elections has been much higher than the 22.2 percent of women who serve as legislators. Vice President Lu said further that although the number of Taiwanese women in the Legislature has been less than that in northern Europe, it has exceeded the number of women parliament members in the U.S. and Japan. In terms of sex ratio in the nomination process, Kuomintang nominated 156 female members to vie for city and county councilors and some 123 of them are elected, which means that 79 percent of the women nominated by the party won the elections. The Democratic Progressive Party nominated a total of 118 men and women for the same elections, 79 of which are women. And among the 79 percent of all women candidates 76 percent won the elections. Although there are a three percentage points differences between the KMT and the DPP, the fact that the KMT is a political party of 111 years of age whereas the DPP is only 19 years old still makes the DPP's achievement in women participation remarkable.
Vice President Lu hopes the association could serve as the talent pool of all women professionals and could seek the most of the benefit and welfare for women all over Taiwan.