The Constitutional Council

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A Quota for Women?

In 1953, Emily Ibrahim was the first Lebanese woman to present her candidacy for the parliamentary elections in Zahle. Ibrahim however was to withdraw her candidacy from the race of 1953 in what is a fitting illustration for women in Lebanese politics. Lebanon is 123^rd out of 136 in terms of its international ranking of female representation in parliament. Women have gained the right to vote and be elected but have yet to gain the conditions needed to make female representation in parliament a reality.

Chantal Sarkis, The International Foundation of Electoral Systems (IFES) Program Manager, articulated the dire situation of women in Lebanon’s parliamentary system, “Lebanese women parliamentarians have been branded as the women “dressed in black”. Historically, the most likely way for a woman to enter the political scene in Lebanon was to fill a post made absent by a male heir.” Sarkis went on to explain that, “in fact, since 1963, most of the women, with the exception of current MP Ghinwa Jalloul, entered into the Lebanese parliament because of their traditional and familial ties not because of their political or social affiliations.”

The first women minister was not until 2004. “When the government of Prime Minister Omar Karami was formed in November 2004, Lebanon Leila Solh, daughter of former Prime Minister Riad Solh and Wafaa Hamza, close to Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri were appointed ministers,” said Sarkis.

Chart of Female Candidates to the Parliament from 1953 to 2005	Nb. Of Female Candidates	Nb. Of Female Winners
1953	1	0
1957	1	0
1960	2	0
1963 (by election)	1	1
1964	2	0
1965 (by election)	1	0
1968	2	0
1972	4	0
1991	0	1 (appointment)
1992	6	3
1996	11	3
2000	18	3
2005	14	6

Source Lebanese Parliament

There has been a debate about introducing a quota system and most formally a quota was included in the Boutros Commission proposal for a new electoral law, this proposal was rejected. However, Sarkis explained that, “during the parliamentary sessions of September 2008 to vote on a new electoral law no concrete system was proposed and the reserved seat system was intentionally neglected due to the fear of adding another quota to the existing confessional and geographical quota.”

Sarkis argues that although the quota system was rejected the push for higher representation of women in parliament should not stop. “There are three different ways in which this battle can be fought: Reserved seats, Statutory gender quotas or Voluntary gender quotas.” The advantage of the voluntary gender quota does not require a law or regulation and relies on the will of the political parties. The best system Sarkis argues for Lebanon is the adoption of the proportional representation system or a mixed system combined with some positive actions policies. “Those policies could be statutory quotas controlling the gender balance of candidates’ lists for all parties and a rank-ordering system of the candidates. The statutory quotas would control the composition of candidates’ lists established by law or constitution. All parties’ lists running under the PR system would be required that women must constitute a minimal proportion of parliamentary candidates within each party,” Sarkis stated.

While the chance to implement such a strategy for the upcoming election has long since gone Sarkis is focusing on the 2010 municipality elections. “This should be the right time and place to implement a number of reformist steps starting with the women quota and ending with a radical change of the electoral system.”

Doreen Khoury from the Civil Campaign for Electoral Reform talks to NOW Lebanon

Doreen Khoury, coordinator of the Civil Campaign for Electoral Reform, sat down with NOW Lebanon’s Deborah Brown to discuss the electoral law the parliament passed on September 27 2008. The new electoral law is absent of many of the more controversial reforms proposed by the Boutros Commission’s draft, such as the formation of an Independent Election Commission, a pre-printed ballot and lowering the voting age to 18 from 21.

Khoury stated that it is, "really shameful is that we [Lebanon] in the Arab world are the only country apart from Syria that doesn’t use the pre-printed ballot. ...alarm bells should be going off....The reason that it was rejected was for political reasons.... And I think [that] happened because the parliamentary sessions on the electoral law were not televised. Many of the citizens missed the debate, which would have really surprised and shocked many of them. Many of the MPs were supporting this reform and other reforms, and then they voted against it. CCER had a representative in the session. But the fact that it wasn’t filmed, it wasn’t live, meant that many people missed a lot of the really contradictory and unconvincing statements that were being made by MPs against some of the reforms."

As for the setting up of the Independent Election Commission Khoury stated that because the original draft law failed in its first draft: "What replaced it is this condensed committee in the Ministry of the Interior which monitors campaign finance and the media. The problem with this committee is that it’s not independent."