Activists call appointments of women, minorities “fig-leaf”

The appointment of five women and five Coptic Christians to parliament on 13 December will do little to address the fundamental problem of political exclusion, say activists. The Egyptian constitution stipulates that 444 seats of the 454-member People's Assembly are elected. The remaining 10 seats, meanwhile, are reserved for representatives appointed by the executive. Long-time President Hosni Mubarak has traditionally used this clause to increase the parliamentary representation of women and minorities. Female and Coptic candidates made generally dismal showings in the parliamentary elections that ended on 8 December. Only one Copt, finance minister Yusef Boutros Ghali, and four women won seats. The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), which won a two-thirds majority in parliament, nominated only two Coptic and six women candidates. Minority exclusion Youssef Sidhoum, editor of the Coptic weekly Al-Watani, described the move by President Hosni Mubarak as a “cosmetic measure,” opining that, “Copts have been subject to a lot of marginalisation in the last three decades.” Paltry political representation of Copts, he added, was indicative of “the sick culture that prevails and still dictates that a Coptic candidate has a weaker chance” of being elected. Sidhoum went on to note that ballots were cast mostly along religious lines. “Copts will only elect a Coptic candidate and Muslims will only elect Muslims,” he said. Coptic writer and intellectual Milad Hanna agreed in calling the appointments an “artificial” form of representation. “None of those nominated is a genuine leader of the Coptic community,” he said. Little more than “stooges” of the government, the appointees will be “unlikely to challenge current policies,” Hanna added. Coptic Christians, who make up between 5 and 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 70 million, have existed in Egypt since the first century AD. The Coptic Church suffered a decline after the Arab Muslim invasion in the seventh century, but has experienced a revival since the middle of the last century. Copts were occasionally the victims of violent reprisals by Islamist groups in southern Egypt in the 1990s, and many say they continue to be subject to official discrimination. According to Sidhoum, Copts have “withdrawn from the public sector and public service and political participation” over the last several years. Discrimination against women Negal al-Qumsan, director of the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights, said that three of Mubarak’s female appointees were relative unknowns: “The president nominated them based on what? What are their ideas? What is their role? We don’t know,” she said. Women’s rights groups have criticised all of the Egyptian political parties for failing to support female candidates. “We’re extremely unhappy with this result,” said National Women’s Council Secretary General Farkhonda Hassan. “The parties didn’t nominate enough women. The people didn’t vote for women.” According to al-Qumsan, political parties failed to challenge the widespread discrimination regularly faced by women. She recounted how party leaders had told her: “We’ll lose if we nominate women.” But while popular perceptions dictate that “a woman’s place is in the home,” according to al-Qumsan, a record 127 women contested the elections, the majority as independent candidates. The highest ever level of female representation in an Egyptian parliament was 6.6 percent, made possible by a law reserving 32 parliamentary seats for women in elections in 1987. The law was later deemed unconstitutional, however, and revoked. Hassan noted that the ruling NDP was currently discussing the idea of a quota system aimed at reserving a certain percentage of each party’s seats to women and minority representatives.