Election Breakdown: Candidates by Gender
Of the 14,789 candidates running in the October 20 local government elections, 60.1 percent are men and 39.9 percent are women.
The Center Party has the distinction of having the highest portion of women candidates in its ranks (44.6 percent), followed by the Social Dems (43.8 percent), the Reform Party (40 percent), IRL (36.9 percent) and the Conservative People's Party (31.6 percent), according to an analysis by the gender equality commissioner's office.
The analysis also examined the gender distribution of the top candidates and candidates by location. In the most populous Estonian cities, the percentage of female candidates running in the top third of the party lists, top 10 percent and top spot were 34, 28 and 17.
While some figures, such as the portion of female candidates on the Center Party's list, seem to be a rather positive indicator of diversity, the comparatively low portion of women running for the top spot in their municipalities is more representative of the current power distribution at the national government level, where 22 out of the 101 MPs are female and there is only one woman among the 13 cabinet ministers.