Although female voter turnout is high, the number of women entering the upcoming parliament is expected to be extremely low, reports Reem Leila During this time of historic change, the status of women in the upcoming parliament seems, in comparison, to have regressed, with longstanding social, political and cultural obstacles continuing to block their political career. The plight of women is particularly depressing in the midst of the dramatically changing political landscape in Egypt after the 25 January Revolution. Only 376 women are running for parliament, thus forming 31 per cent of the total number of individual candidates. Female representation in party and coalition lists does not exceed six per cent. This noticeably low representation in the elections raises feminists concerns about whether women will be able to play a significant role in the country's politics within the next few years. For several years, women's representation in parliament has been up and down. Although women gained their political rights in 1956, their representation in the parliament remained below average. Egypt first applied a 30-seat quota for female candidates in 1979 but that was revoked in 1988 under the claim of being unconstitutional. At that time women took a relatively high percentage of parliament seats. In the session of 1979-1984 women occupied nine per cent of the seats, and 8.3 per cent from 1984-1987. Although women were queuing for long hours to vote during last week's parliamentary elections, there are several concerns about the percentage of their representation in the parliament to be convened during the first quarter of 2012. Farkhonda Hassan, secretary-general of the National Council for Women (NCW), sees the meek representation of women in the elections as having taken a dozen steps backward. Although many women are running for the elections, which is being held in three stages, until now none of them has won a single seat in parliament. "We have been fighting for long years to provide women some of their rights. Unfortunately all our efforts have gone in vain due to the domination of male ideologies represented in some of the narrow-minded figures of Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood," Hassan said. In 2010, a new quota system was introduced to increase women's representation in the parliament, according to which 64 seats were reserved for women. The new quota system was to be applied for two successive legislative terms, or 10 years, which some, especially feminists, argued was not long enough to change the deeply-rooted conservative ideas about women's classic roles in society. In May 2011, after the revolution, the system was annulled after it was deemed unconstitutional. "If the majority of Islamists become in charge, I expect they will strip women of the gains they made in the previous years. In best case scenarios, women's representation in the next parliament will not exceed two per cent by any means," Hassan added. Nihad Abul-Qomsan, head of the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights (ECWR), believes the new electoral system which annulled the quota system seriously reduced women's chances to play any important role in political life. "Rights which women have been struggling for throughout the past years could be lost in no time, as their representation in the parliament is expected to be very weak. A woman is the only one who defends her rights. It is very difficult to find a male who defends a woman's right; he's the one who wants to strip her of the rights she won," said Abul-Qomsan. In a press release issued by the Egyptian Coalition for Civil Education and Women's Participation (ECCEWP), the annulment of the women's quota in the parliament "will destroy" their participation in political life. The statement asked why the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) annulled the women's quota while retaining that of labourers and farmers. This raises the question of validity of cancelling the women's quota, the release argued. "Women's representation in parties and coalition lists should have not been less than 30 per cent instead of the meaningless six per cent," argued Abul-Qomsan. "The percentage of individual female candidates should have formed 50 per cent of the overall candidates." According to Abul-Qomsan, the scrapping of the quota system by SCAF could have been countered by including female candidates in party lists in order to ensure there will be a woman among the first three nominees, and another female in the following three candidates. "This system ensures the representation of at least 10 to 15 per cent of women in the upcoming parliament," added Abul-Qomsan.
