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A Record-Breaking 111 Women Are Running For Lebanon’s Parliament

“In Lebanon, you don’t only cover the news, you live the consequences. In 2018, our country still doesn’t have [24-hour] electricity and the garbage crisis is a scandal,” Yacoubian said, demonstrating her reasons for running in the elections.

Lebanon’s last parliamentary elections were held in 2009, and since then, the country has postponed the elections three times citing “security concerns, political crisis and a dispute over the election law.” In the 2009 elections, just 12 of the 702 candidates were female in comparison to this year’s 111 of the 976 candidates. The number is still relatively low but is record-breaking and a stark contrast to previous elections, as women’s advocates push for their voices to be heard.

The reason for the influx of candidates is because of a new electoral law that was introduced recently, allowing more representation to minority voices that might not have been heard before.

One of the candidates running with a new political party “Sabaa” (meaning seven in Arabic), Victoria El-Khoury Zwein, emphasized the importance of having women in government. “The situation in the country is intolerable. We need new faces in parliament so it’s about time women took matters into their own hands and gave back to their country with all their heart. The role of women in parliament will positively affect women’s rights, but it will not be limited to just that,” Zwein said.

Other known female media personalities have decided to pursue political careers, including news anchor Jessica Azzar who says that “protecting journalists with new laws that would give them more freedom” would be one of her top priorities if elected.

The country might rank highly when it comes to freedom of speech or religious freedom in the Middle East, but ranks poorly in the number of seats held by women in national parliaments.

At the moment, Lebanon has four women in parliament but three of them are related to powerful male politicians. Out of the 111 women running, it is unclear how many could actually make it into office, but the Minister of State for Women’s Affairs, Jean Oghassabian, is expecting at least 20 women to be elected which would be a remarkable achievement for the country.

No matter what happens in the upcoming elections, the way has been paved for more women to run for elected office in the future.

Photo credit: Ramy Kabalan/Unsplash

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