BALLOT From page 9 The electoral process has been taken by feminists as the most conducive political arena to be changed if gender parity in political representation could be realised. This realisation stems from the apparent malleability of electoral systems compared to cultural systems that promote male dominance. While there is consensus that most electoral systems favour men when implemented, there is considerable agreement that the PR system, where it has been implemented, has resulted in more women being elected than where other systems have been used. News X March 1998 in terms of women's representation Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Seychelles, Germany, New Zealand, Argentina and Austria all utilized various forms of proportional representation. Several individual country situations, in which electoral systems have been changed, have further emphasized the apparent structural superiority of PR systems. Good as this might appear, there is need to transform the PR practice to ensure it truly represents, in percentage ratio, the number of women who vote in line with the number of Caption Women have always had a slight advantage in proportional representation (PR) systems compared to other systems. There is a considerable accumulation of comparative evidence that underlines the structural advantages of PR in advantaging women's representation. Of the top 10 countries as of Seats available. While PR has been touted as one electoral system that offers a glimmer of hope to those that advocate for proportional representation in its entirety, no efforts have been made to look at the merits of allocating seats proportionate to the gender aggregation of votes. 11 Issue No. 2 September 2007 The voting process has been made to appear as a gender-neutral exercise where the ultimate vote does not reflect the gendered nature of the total votes cast. While arguments could be proffered as to the wisdom, or lack thereof, of ensuring ballot papers reflect the gender of the voter, in cases where gender equality is seriously considered, one would argue that it is not a wild idea. It is absolutely discriminatory to have 10,5 percent women parliamentarians in a country where 56 percent of the voters are women. It is with this understanding that PR can be improved to ensure the allocation of seats, between men and women, would reflect the ratio of male-tofemale votes cast. H y p o t h e t i c a l l y, a political party that wins 46 percent of the total vote in an election where 100 seats are at stake and 75 percent of the votes cast are from women, has to reserve 75 percent of the 46 seats to women. This means that 35 of the 46 seats go to women. There should be some logical benchmark from which proposals f o r w o m e n representation stems from. Currently, the call for 50-50 percent representation, while it is a move in the right direction, should be face-lifted to ensure where there are more women voters than men, the percentage seats allocated to women should be proportional and commensurate with the ratio of male to female voters X