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Despite earlier promises women’s electoral quota dropped

14-6-2017

After 8 years of continuous deliberations, a political agreement has been reached on a new electoral law, but, despite all earlier promises, parties did not endorse the women’s representation quota long sought for by women and civil society groups and pledged by several politicians. In this context, and after Prime Minister Saad Hariri threatened to boycott the elections should it not observe the said quota, he praised yesterday the efforts that led to the new law, while expressing disappointment because “some reforms, we struggled for, most important of which is the women’s quota, were not approved”. Hariri stressed that he was adamant, and so was House Speaker Berri, on supporting it. “The quota will be nonetheless applied in all the Future Movement bloc’s lists,” the PM stated. For his part, the minister of state for women’s affairs, Jean Ogassapian, tweeted that an elections law which ignores women’s quota is “the worst possible”. Similarly, and hours before the declaration of the ‘accomplishment’ of the above new law, MP Gilberte Zouein, said in a statement: “if officials concerned had to include the women’s quota in the ‘notable’ elections legislation, it ought not be restricted to nomination, but also observed on the level of results.” Then only, she added, “the women’s quota becomes an actual component of the process of state reform and enhancement of the role of women in political life.” (Al Mustaqbal, Al Diyar, June 14, 2017)

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