How to be the Last? Voters, Candidates, and Parties in Hungary

The title of the paper hints at two conditions: first, Hungary is the last (but one „before” Malta) in terms of female political representation among the EU member-states. And second, female politicians regularly are placed last or at least on non-winning positions on the party lists. With the help of a new and still unexplored database which includes all female and male candidates’ electoral performance and political career profiles between 1990 and 2010 the paper would like to examine the electoral connection between voters and candidates - and its impact on parties’ candidate selection strategies. How does the electorate evaluate women candidates and how do the parties handle the electoral response? Is it party political constellation or societal expectation or both that place women (candidates) where they are now? The analysis will focus on two questions. First, how does the electorate respond to female candidates? Since the voters have two votes (one for the lists and one for individual candidates in SMDs) they can express their preference in SMDs differently. Do women candidates perform better or worse than male candidates in SMDs – and how do women candidates’ SMD results compare to their parties’ list results? Second, how do parties respond to voters’ messages? Does the party selectorate consider electoral results in the SMDs and applies them in the candidates’ selection, placement, or de-selection in prospective (later) elections? Our expectation is that voters do not systematically punish female candidates. We also assume that women with the same (or very similar) political career background will not perform worse electorally in SMDs than their male counterparts. These expectations are based on public opinion polls about women’s political underrepresentation in Hungary. If the analysis of the data verifies public sympathies the political rationale behind the party selectorates’ candidate selection decisions requires further explanation.