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Women who hold seats in parliament worry they
will be passed by when posts in the new cabinet are
allocated.
Women are being deprived of access to political
power as parliamentary factions battle over posts in
the forthcoming cabinet, female politicians from
several parties say.
Female members of parliament say that they have been
excluded from the months of negotiations over the
cabinet, and that no woman leads any of the top
parties or blocs.
The constitutional requirement that women should
hold 25 per cent of seats in parliament has not been
met; their representation stands at 19 per cent or
52 of the 275 seats. That position is mirrored
within the individual political blocs in the
legislature.
The limited political power that women have won
raises questions about how effective their
representatives in parliament and government will be
in raising women's issues.
Maysun al-Damalugi, a lawmaker for the Iraqi
National List, a bloc led by former prime minister
Ayad Allawi, believes the dominance of religious
parties is affecting female participation.
Women led six ministries in the last cabinet, but
she said there is concern that in the new
government, "Women will be replaced by men or won't
be used at all."
It is probable that a woman, possibly from the Iraqi
National List, will be appointed deputy prime
minister after female politicians last weekend
demanded one of the four posts. The United Iraqi
Alliance, the leading slate in parliament,
reportedly supports the proposal.
But as a whole, the role of women in government has
received little attention as political leaders
attempt to pull together Iraq's first permanent
cabinet. Serious negotiations over ministerial posts
finally began moving forward only this week, more
than four months after the parliamentary elections.
The main sticking points have been over the prime
minister’s job - an issue resolved last weekend when
Jawad al-Maliki was nominated for the post - and the
division of ministerial posts among rival groupings.
Posts for women have taken a back seat to disputes
over whether Shia or Sunni blocs should control the
interior and defence ministries, as sectarian
violence plagues Baghdad.
Nor have women had much input into the debate.
"Women are still unable to affect the course of the
political process," said Samia Aziz, a Kurdish
lawmaker.
Allawi’s Iraqi National List gave women a quarter of
the 25 seats it won in parliament, but not all blocs
- even those that espouse more secular and liberal
policies - followed suit. The Kurdistan Alliance
captured 53 seats, but gave just nine of them -17
per cent of the total - to female politicians. The
Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance, widely regarded as
conservatively religious in outlook, did better with
23 per cent of its seats in the legislature going to
women.
One Sunni Arab list, the Iraqi Front for National
Dialogue, has no women among its 11
parliamentarians, while another Sunni Arab
coalition, the Iraqi Accord Front, allotted 20 per
cent, or nine of its 44 seats, to female candidates.
Jenan al-Obeidi, who represents the United Iraqi
Alliance in parliament, said the overall 25 per cent
parliamentary quota will be met by allocating
discretionary seats. There are 45 such seats in the
legislature, held back in principle so they can be
distributed to parties that end up under-represented
as a quirk of proportional representation.
However, female lawmakers appear less concerned
about fulfilling quotas than about their own lack of
real power. A female member of parliament is certain
to be awarded the ministry of women's affairs, but
other than this there appears to be little appetite
to hand powerful positions to women.
"Women are hoping to have opportunities to become
ministers, but they will have to put pressure on
their parties," said Obeidi.
According to Obeidi, the problem of political
marginalisation in parliament stems from a
longer-term failure to promote women within
individual political parties.
"This isn't a new problem," she said.
Female members of parliament across the board have
pledged to make women's issues - ranging from
domestic violence to employment and education - top
priorities.
One of the most contentious issues facing parliament
is the personal status law. The constitutional
stipulation that no law can contradict Islam worries
many women's rights advocates who say women should
have the right to decide whether Islamic law governs
marriage, divorce and inheritance.
Obeidi said women parliamentarians are considering
forming a female bloc to advocate for women's issues
and increase their clout in parliament. She said
many of her colleagues share similar agendas.
However, there appears to have been no attempt to
set the bloc up before the cabinet is formed.
Female leaders have in the past toyed with the idea
of creating such a bloc but have never done so. Some
have criticised female politicians for failing to
challenge their own parties’ agendas.
Mahmood Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker, noted that Iraqi
society remains patriarchal and reluctant to allow
women to win top posts. But he said that if women in
parliament are united and come up with common
proposals, "this bloc could play an important role".
Zaineb Naji is an IWPR trainee journalist in
Baghdad.
iwpr.net
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