The Path to Real Participation of Women….Yes To Quota

Egyptian Women struggled for over 6 decades in order to obtain the right to political participation as voters and candidates, which was achieved through being stipulated in the Constitution 1956. This resulted in the participation of women in the 1957 parliament with two seats. However, the percentage of women’s representation in the parliament since obtaining their political rights and until now did not exceed 2% with the exception of the periods that have adopted Quota systems for women and the Proportional list system in 1979, 1984, and 2010.
Even though six decades have passed, Egyptian Women still suffer from the cultural, social, political discrimination with no initiation from the decision makers to end this discrimination. The Egyptian women have influential voting bloc which reached up to 24 million female voters, it is a crucial in any election. This voting bloc is left to groups that abuse woman’s demands just before any election to in order to guarantee their votes.

Egypt recorded a huge degradation at the level of political women’s rights as it ranked 125 out of 133 in the world; according to the Gender Gap Report issued by the World Economic Forum 2012. As per women’s representation in the parliament and after unprecedented participation of women in the 25 Jan revolution, Egypt ranked 128 out of 131 countries. However, Women gained nothing in this revolution; women’s representation in the post revolution parliament was 1.8%. Moreover, Egypt’s position fell back severely at the Arab and African levels in women’s representation and participation in decision making.

Now, after correcting the pathway of the revolution in June 30th 2013, and the unprecedented participation of women in maintaining the Egyptian State, and what is proved by experience is that there has been a deliberate neglect of the Egyptian Women for decades which has led significantly to using women’s ignorance, poverty, and discrimination. Given that the public opinion is directed to the individual electoral system as an interim step towards supporting the partisan and political life in Egypt and eradicating the terrorist groups.

Therefore, the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights ECWR and the Parliament of Defending Women emphasize on the need to support the political participation of women with at least one third in any electoral system whether individual, proportional list, or mixed electoral systems.

The Individual System should stipulate the allocation of seats for women at each constituency; three members in each include two men and one woman.
The upcoming Parliament shall include totally 666 members; 222 constituencies, each constituency have three members.

The division of constituencies shall be in a way to ensure that the constituencies are consistent and balanced in its geographical borders and electoral environment, the administrative division should be considered when drawing the borders of the constituencies.

In the mixed system that combines the list and individual systems: women’s position shall be considered in a way that guarantees a representation of at least one-third of seats; and the list is divided equally between women and men and sequentially, as well as the participation of women shall be ensured in the individual system.

ECWR and the Parliament of Defending Women would like to underscore that they are not biased toward any electoral system except if the system guarantees real political participation for the Egyptian women which has become a political as well as a developmental concern to maintain Egypt’s security and not to let women become the target of the darkness groups which depend on women as the fuel for their electoral as well as political struggles.
Furthermore, we confirm that women should participate with no less than 30% in the 50-member committee that will amend the constitution.