The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights Launched an Interactive Map for Female Candidates of the 2015 Parliament

) ECWR has launched an Interactive Map for the 2015 House of Representatives from a gender perspective. The map’s mission is to monitor and follow up the female candidates starting from their nomination phase till the announcement of final results.
ECWR dedicated a page on its website for a gender-sensitive analysis of the parliamentary elections to add all laws related to elections and publish the names of the final female candidates whether on the parties lists or independent in all governorates http://ecwronline.org/elections.

This map comes in the frame of the operations room that ECWR established to monitor 2015 parliamentary elections from gender perspective. This comes to present a gender-sensitive visualization for female participation as voters and candidates, the impact of the electoral process on the level of female participation, the support presented to female candidates by the Egyptian political parties or any other bodies on the political, financial, and technical and finally ECWR’s follow up efforts through all the electoral phases.

Following up on the 2015 parliamentary elections has begun in July 2014 through ECWR’s operations room and will continue till the announcement of the results.
The monitoring and follow up process is based on three mechanisms as follows:
• Providing the female candidates with technical support
• Monitoring the electoral coalitions
• Providing the female candidates with legal support

The technical support for female candidates:
ECWR provided trainings for 100 female candidates for the upcoming parliament. The trainings included women from 25 governorates. The trained female candidates represented different political and party affiliations as there were 21 political parties participating. The trainings addressed practical and field topics that contribute to management of electoral campaigns effectively along with resources management.

Observation the electoral coalitions:
The team of the operations room observes the electoral coalitions through newspapers, websites or through communicating with the female candidates themselves. In order to present the changes on the coalitions since its establishment till the elections and monitor women’s status and to which extent these coalitions are supportive to its female candidates.

The legal support:
Through the operation rooms, ECWR receives complaints from the female candidates regarding elections. ECWR provides them with the support and legal consultations via ECWR’s email ecwr@ecwronline.org, phone: 25282176 or mobile: 010 99 97 17 23.

It is worth mentioning that ECWR aims to achieve the following from the operations room:
1) Reduce the information gap on the participation of women as voters and candidates through field observation and the role of the concerned bodies, whether partisan or non-partisan.
2) Study the problems facing women’s political participation in an objective manner based on field experience and not merely theories or perceptions.
3) Provide practical vision on the problems of political participation of all.
4) Follow up on the progress of participation and the influence of the concerned bodies especially political parties.
5) Study the legal environment in Egypt and its impact on women’s political participation.