CAIRO: Electoral violence has risen 1,093 percent since 1987, according to a field study conducted by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights.
The study, entitled “The Impact of Election Violence on Democratic Transition and Women’s Political Participation found that 2,186 violent incidents were recorded throughout the 2005 parliamentary elections, compared with 50 in 1987.
In tandem with human rights organizations, the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR), conducted the study between September 2006 and December 2007, speaking to 2,509 Egyptians who voted in the 2005 People’s Assembly election.
The research, which was presented to the press in summarized form on Feb. 2 at the ECWR, aimed to monitor the challenges to democratic transition in Egypt focusing on the political participation of women.
According to the results, despite promises by political parties to ensure that female candidates made up 20 percent of their respective candidates, only four women were elected to parliament, an increase of a mere two since 1957.
Political powers claimed that this is a natural result of cultural factors.
However, results of the field study prove that 63.2 percent of those surveyed did not have any objection to women participating in parliament and 43.3 percent of those agreed that women have the same rights as men to stand for parliament.
In contrast to this, only 29.9 percent objected to women’s entry into the political arena, with 31.50 percent of that number expressing the view that women’s role remains in the domestic sphere only.
In spite of this positive response, the report illustrated the dangers that women face in elections accompanied by heightened physical violence and harmful election tactics including harassment.
In a previous report by the ECWR entitled “Rising over Women’s Bodies, researchers investigated the case of So’ad Ta’lib, a female parliamentary candidate who was killed in a high speed car crash in 2005. It was reported that the car which had crashed into her ran over her body several times to cause maximum disfigurement.
Tracing the history of female participation in Egypt, the results of the study exhibit a relationship between the dramatic decrease in female representation in parliament and the change from the proportional representation system to the individual majority system in 1990.
Researchers also focused on electoral integrity from a less gender specific angle, after civil society organizations reported that the ‘mobilization’ of voters was a distinctive feature of the 2005 elections. They found that 18.3 percent of those interviewed voted after it was suggested they should by friends and 39.7 percent went to the ballot box due to pressure from friends or family, while 15.3 percent were rallied by the National Democratic Party itself.
The role of societies was also addressed as a major problem threatening the integrity of the elections. “The candidates would use the societies as middlemen. They would give gifts and make donations, often of basic foodstuffs like sugar and lard, Nehad Abdul-Qomsan, head of the ECWR, told Daily News Egypt.
“Then the societies would naturally support them, spreading word of their good reputation and generosity and encouraging people to vote for them. Many people voted for independents affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood without even knowing their religious views.
According to experts, including Dr Amr Al-Choubaki of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies who spoke at the conference, the results affirm those of previous studies that trace the rise of the “vote buying candidate, a phenomenon that spells the collapse of the political party system. The concern of voters no longer lies with party political concerns, but rather to benefit from a service providing candidate.
However, the use of violence during the elections is what concerns researchers the most as they speculate on the 2010 elections and the violence that may ensue if current problems are not dealt with.
When investigating the role of the security apparatus, researchers discovered that 90.3 percent of respondents did not file complaints to security authorities on account of their lack of confidence in what many believe to be a tool of the National Democratic Party.
Seventeen percent of respondents said that after their experiences of the 2005 election, they would never be voting in an election again: a depressing prospect for Egypt’s ‘budding’ democracy.
