POLITICAL REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN ROMANIA In the post-1989 era, the political repre­sentation of women has been one of the indicators of the quality of democracy at which Romania has consistently been among the last places at European level. Women in Romania face difficulties even standing for office in elections, not to mention the even greater difficulty of actually occupying eligible positions. It is troubling that 2019-2020 elections for the first time since Romania's accession to the EU saw a decrease in political representation of women, both at national and European levels. Correcting shortcomings in legislation and making candidate selection procedures more transparent could ensure inter alia both a greater presence of women on electoral lists and help promote a political agenda that more consistently represents the interests of women. Recent sociological research shows that public perception of gender equality and of women occupying political positions has improved over the past 20 years, although compared to other democratic countries attitudes remain more closely aligned with a traditional, patriarchal gender contract. Moreover, the organisational culture of political parties continues to be heavily influenced by patriarchal values in terms of gender roles. More information about this subject can be found here: https://romania.fes.de/ 47