Cyprus employs proportional electoral rules with preferential voting, which allow voters to choose among candidates and engage in same-gender voting, i.e. choose candidates of their own gender (Holli, 2010). This electoral system should allow women's political empowerment from below; however, Cypriot women's representation in decision-making bodies has been minimal to non-existent. In 2006, among the fifty five deputies of the National Assembly, only eight were female, while there were no female representatives in the European Parliament, no female party leaders, and no female members in the National Council of Ministers (Cyprus Gender Research Center, 2006). The paper inquires about individual-level factors affecting same-gender voting among Cypriot citizens, including gender, age, education, party identification and stereotypes about women's role in society as well their competence and suitability for politics. To this aim, it utilizes exit-poll data collected by the Cyprus Gender Research Center (N= 3216) at the 2006
Cypriot parliamentary election. This was the first election conducted after accession to the European Union (EU) which bound Cyprus to comply with the EU acquis, which seeks to eliminate discrimination, inter alia, on the grounds of gender.
References
Charalambidou-Solomi, D, Chr. Maouri, M. Michailidou & E. Kammitsi.
2006. Parliamentary elections 2006: The gender preferences of the Cypriot voters (2006). Technical report Cyprus Gender Research Center.
Holli, Anne Maria & Hanna Wass. 2010. “Gender-based voting in the parliamentary elections of 2007 in Finland.” European Journal of Political Research
49(5):598–630.
