Sarah Elliott

Her Voice Counts

Posters of candidates running for Parliamentary elections cover the walls through out the capitol of Cairo. Women in Egypt were given the right to vote in 1956 and turned out in surprisingly high numbers to vote in Egypt’s historic parliamentary elections. 1979 was the first year that a women’s quota of seats in parliament was first implemented, which has now been abolished under the new electoral law. Under the Egyptian election laws, political groups are required to include at least one female candidate but fail to specify where their names should be included on the voting ballot. Many women’s names were placed at the bottom of the ballot, reducing their chances of being elected to a seat.
Posters of candidates running for Parliamentary elections cover the walls through out the capitol of Cairo. Women in Egypt were given the right to vote in 1956 and turned out in surprisingly high numbers to vote in Egypt’s historic parliamentary elections. 1979 was the first year that a women’s quota of seats in parliament was first implemented, which has now been abolished under the new electoral law. Under the Egyptian election laws, political groups are required to include at least one female candidate but fail to specify where their names should be included on the voting ballot. Many women’s names were placed at the bottom of the ballot, reducing their chances of being elected to a seat.