Will women be allowed to govern in the new Egypt?

Summary of story from Ahram, October 20, 2011

Recent changes to Egypt’s electoral law scrapped the Mubarak-era women’s quota, which allocated 64 parliamentary seats for women.

In the upcoming, post-revolution elections two thirds of the parliament will be elected through a proportional list system and one third through single ticket voting.

The new law says that each proportional list must have at least one woman but female candidates are starting to feel left out.

Political activist Gameela Ismael announced recently that she will withdraw from the Democratic Alliance, which is led by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

She was shocked, she said, when she was informed three days ago that her name came third and not first on the list for the downtown Cairo seat.

Candidates first on the list have a better chance of winning than ones who come at the end of the list.

And she blamed this third place on the chauvinism of the FJP, which, she says, does not want women to win seats in the November 28 elections for the first post-Mubarak parliament.

Ismael said that she decided to withdraw to show her solidarity with other women candidates who were not given first place on the list or in some political parties outside of the Alliance, put at the end of the list or, sometimes, completely disregarded.

Women, she pointed out, stood side by side with men during the Egyptian revolution and even when government thugs entered Tahrir Square on February 2.

How then, asked Ismael, can they now be marginalised in this way?