Iraq's Female Candidates, Activists Or Quota Fillers?
In Iraq, voters go to the polls on Sunday to cast ballots in a general election. By law, 25 percent of Iraq's parliament has to be female, and every major party has prominent women featured on the billboards that are blanketing the country. Many of these are long-time activist for women's rights, others are a more obvious attempt by the parties to make up the quota.
: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
Here's a story that our colleagues at NPR's WEEKEND EDITION will likely follow for you all weekend. Iraq holds an election on Sunday. It's only the second parliamentary election since the fall of Saddam Hussein. And it's a sign of Iraq's new democracy that nobody knows who's going to win. We do know one thing, many women will take office. Iraqi law reserves a quarter of the seats for women. Last time around, many of those seats were filled by party loyalists. This time some women want to make sure the parliament includes more independent voices.
NPR's Quil Lawrence reports.
QUIL LAWRENCE: Dozens of people in wheelchairs have gathered in an organization called Al-Rafidain in central Baghdad for a short meeting. The group is too poor to have a generator. So, when the city power goes out, about half the day, it gets dark inside the office. Outside in the courtyard it's light, but the neighbor's generator makes it hard to hear today's guest speaker.
M: (Foreign language spoken)
LAWRENCE: Faiza Babakhan(ph) is running for parliament as a member of the Kurdish electoral slate. She promised the small crowd she will fight to ensure that Iraq's disabled will get more support. The crowd listens attentively, not least because it's unusual to see candidates out in the streets campaigning in Iraq, especially a woman dressed in a smart business suit with long brown hair showing. Babakhan says the female party loyalists, who were put in the last legislature aren't showing the real Iraq.
M: It is very shame for the Iraqi political parties to nominate very weak women in the parliament. We have a very strong and tough women in Iraq.
LAWRENCE: In fact, Iraq has a long tradition of progressive laws on women's rights, according to another female candidate, Juman Kubba.
M: They have been accustomed to having rights. I mean, my late mother attended university in the 1940s.
LAWRENCE: Kubba is running as part of the Shiite alliance. It's a religious coalition, but she considers herself an independent. She believes Iraq can still be a progressive country, despite its recent troubles.
M: Iraq was the leader, over the past century, in the Arab world or the Muslim world, with regards to women. There were some tendencies over the past seven years to take step back, but I don't think you can destroy progress of decades in seven years.
LAWRENCE: But there are serious obstacles. During the post invasion government, religious parties tried to overturn Iraq's relatively liberal family law, which controls issues like divorce, child custody and inheritance. Pressure from women activists as well as a veto by the U.S. Occupational Authority preserved the law. But the Iraqi constitution, as it stands, might allow for different regions of the country to interpret family law differently. Shada Al- Abussi(ph), a Sunni member of parliament up for re-election, says she is not going to let that happen.
M: We have a very good law for personal status. They want to remove it. We are afraid for the Islamic court to return, because as a woman we will not be equal before law. And the loser in this, the woman - because in some sects she have no rights.
LAWRENCE: Abussi says she has been campaigning hard even though her party declined to spend money on her advertisements. The men in the party declared that Abussi would get a seat, regardless, as part of the quota; so why spend money on the campaign? But Abussi says she has her own large following and can help out less popular male candidates. She's not shy.
M: I'm equal ten men.
M: (Foreign language spoken)
LAWRENCE: Faiza Babakhan finishes her short speech at the Center for Disabled in Baghdad and takes questions from the audience, most of them asking for help with their own specific cases - medicine, equipment and pensions. But lots of promises have been made in the past, says Alia Hussein(ph), a paraplegic woman in a head scarf.
M: (Foreign language spoken)
LAWRENCE: Man or woman, I don't think it makes any difference, says Hussein. Adding, I don't believe a woman will feel the suffering of the nation more. Despite her skepticism, she does admit that Babakhan is the first candidate, man or woman, who has bothered to come and ask for her vote.
Quil Lawrence, NPR News, Baghdad. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
