Gamal Essam El-Din reports on plans to increase women's representation in parliament The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) approved a historical legislative initiative instituting a quota for women in the People's Assembly. The initiative will raise the number of elected parliamentary seats from 444 to 500, all 56 of the extra places reserved for women. Currently the assembly has 454 members, 444 elected and 10 appointed by the president. The additional seats will swell the assembly's ranks to 510 MPs, the highest number in Egypt's parliamentary history. NDP approval of the changes came two days after President Hosni Mubarak held a meeting with senior politicians and two weeks ahead of the end of the current parliamentary session. Presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad announced on Saturday that President Hosni Mubarak had reviewed draft laws remaining on the legislative agenda of the current parliamentary session and stressed that emphasis should be given to increasing the number of seats for women in parliament. Mubarak, said Awad, issued orders that legislative and constitutional experts thoroughly discuss the draft law before it comes up for final debate before parliament. The NDP's powerful Higher Council for Policies (HCP), led by Gamal Mubarak, disclosed details of the new legislative initiative during a meeting on Monday. "This is a historical turning point for Egyptian women and a big boost to political reform efforts," said NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif. Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Moufid Shehab has already indicated that the cabinet will meet to discuss the bill early next week while Gamal Mubarak said the new legislation on female representation will be ready for discussion before the People's Assembly adjourns in the third week of June. "We have decided that it will not apply to the Shura Council, the consultative upper house which currently includes 22 appointed female members out of a total 264," said Mubarak. Nor, he added, would it apply to local councils, where a decision would be taken only after the ongoing revision of local administration laws. Mubarak said that the legislation had sparked intense debate within the NDP and it had finally been agreed that 56 seats be reserved. "Since there are 28 governorates in Egypt the number of seats reserved for women in the People's Assembly will be 56, or 11 per cent of total." Mubarak revealed that if approved by the People's Assembly, the bill would apply to parliamentary elections due to be held in October 2010. "In these elections, held under the individual candidacy system, specific districts across all governorates will field only female candidates... No decision has been reached yet about the number of districts to be designated women-only. The number could be decided by administrative borders or by the number of citizens registered on voter lists." Mubarak's words reflect a division within the NDP on the issue. A majority of NDP members believe that all governorates should not be treated in the same manner but that the number of female representatives be weighted according to population, thus allowing Cairo, and other densely populated areas, to field more female candidates than sparsely inhabited desert governorates. Mubarak also indicated that the legislative initiative would probably propose increasing the number of seats for women for 10 years only, or two five- year parliamentary terms. "The bill should be viewed as introducing positive discrimination in favour of women but it is not discrimination that should be necessarily permanently enshrined in legislation," argued Mubarak. In a press conference on Monday Mohamed Kamal, chairman of the HCP Youth Committee, said the number of districts reserved for female candidates will be decided in a matter of days. Kamal also stressed that increasing the total number of assembly seats would not violate constitutional guarantees that 50 per cent of parliamentary places be reserved for farmers' and workers' representatives. He also pointed out that the idea is not new. In 1979, 30 out of a total 360 parliamentary seats were reserved for women, though the provision was discarded when the electoral law was revised in 1986. "Restoring a quota now has many advantages," argued Kamal, "not least that it will allow women to occupy seats they would almost certainly win if they were not faced by so many barriers, obstructions that in the 2005 People's Assembly election saw women elected to just 0.09 per cent of seats." Kamal underlined that allocating women candidate-only districts does not mean that women will not also compete against men in other districts. "The law will make it clear that women will have the right to compete among themselves in designated districts and compete against men in open districts," said Kamal.
