The results of the first round, Party List System

Less than half-hearted Nominations led to Weak Results Only Three Women Elected
The Operations Room at ECWR closely monitored the People’s Assembly elections, which took place on November 28 and 29, 2011 for the governorates of the first round: Cairo, El-Fayoum, Port Said, Kafr El-Sheikh, Damietta, Alexandria, Red Sea, Luxor, Assuit.

212 female candidates were nominated on party-lists in the first round but only three women were elected in the end: Margreet Azeer, Cairo governorate, 2nd constituency, Hanan Abou El-Ghaeet in Damietta governorate, both from the El-Wafd party and Sana’a El-Said of the Egyptian Bloc in the Assuit governorate, 2nd constituency, resulting in women representing
only 1.4% the people elected.

It is worth mentioning that the number of nominated women on the party-lists was very low, due to the weak People’s Assembly law, which required parties to place at least one woman on their list but did not specify in what position the female candidate has to be placed.

Consequently, most of the political parties placed women at the end of their lists rendering it impossible for the women to be elected.The uprising of religious parties in the first round of the election – according to the announced results – naturally lead to heightened absence of elected women and the low ranks of women on other parties’ lists even reinforced women’s absence. Furthermore facts indicate that the few women, who were nominated in better positions, were deliberately chosen because the party could take advantage of her well-known name or because she belonged to a certain influential tribe that assures the respective political party to come first in a certain constituency. Further the facts indicate that other highly qualified women were not chosen because they lack the fame or tribal background completely neglecting their qualifications.

This technique can be considered as a continuation of the pre-revolution methods, where women were marginalized or just used as a ‘decoration’ for the international audience but a serious commitment toward women’s participation was lacking.