Sveitarstjórnarkosningar - 01.03.1999, Page 57

Sveitarstjórnarkosningar 1998
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valid votes were cast. In municipalities where the election is
proportional, seats are allocated by employing the D’Hondt
method.
Local govemment elections differ írom general elections
in that the candidate lists are often non-party political or j oint
lists of two or more parties. Comparison of results between
municipalities or between election years is therefore diffi-
cult. In 1998 the Social Democratic Party and the People’s
Alliance offered joint candidate lists in most municipalities
where they had previously had lists of their own, sometimes
together with other political movements, such as the Wom-
en’s Alliance.
A total of 756 representatives were elected to local coun-
cils in 1998,543 men and 213 women. In municipalities with
proportional voting men make up 68 per cent of the total
number of representatives, while in municipalities with
direct voting 78 per cent of the total are men. From the
candidates in proportional elections, 17.2 per cent were
elected, 19.0 per cent of the male candidates and 14.4 per
cent of the female candidates. Women outnumber men on
eight councils, while 15 councils are composed of men only,
10 in municipalities with direct voting and 5 with propor-
tional voting.
The 40-44-year age group has the highest number of
elected council representatives, while the population groups
aged 40-54 years have similar proportions of representa-
tives elected. By the age of 60 very few are elected,
especially in urban localities. The mean age of representa-
tives was 44.2 years.
Among the representatives elected in 1998, 53 per cent
had previously been elected one or more times. This rate was
58 per cent for men and 41 per cent for women, while for
proportionally elected representatives the rate was 47 per
cent and 63 per cent for directly elected representatives. The
different rates for men and women are in part due to the fact
that between 1982 and 1998 the number of women on local
councils rose by 64 while the number of men fell by 500.
Of those who were elected in the 1994 local government
elections (981), 36 per cent were re-elected in 1998. This
rate is 3 7 per cent for men and 33 per cent for women. Among
those elected in 1982,65 persons, 62 men and 3 women, were
re-elected in every election 1986-1998.