New Trends in Women‟s Political Participation in the Middle East (Special Reference to Egypt)

Abstract

The people‘s uprising in the Middle East, which commenced in Tunisia, spread to many Middle East countries including, Egypt ,Libya, Yemen and Syria. This turned the attention to many aspects like, Democracy, Social Fairness, Equality, Constitutionalism and Political Participation. Further it caused implementation thereof to a certain extent. New trends were seen in women‘s political participation as a result of the rising of 25th January 2011 in Egypt. Consequently, 87 females were able to represent the masses out of its 596 representatives in the new Parliament. The percentage thereof is 15%. Female representation in Egypt was seen at a high level in comparison with the past. Therefore, the question here is that, what are the new trends in political representation in women in the Middle East. The objectives of this research is identification of impediments to women‘s political participation in the Middle East and to look in to the history of women‘s political participation. As methodology of this research, primary data and secondary data had been used. In order to collect primary data, structural interviews and non-Structural interviews methods are used. Although, the result of this research is, women‘s political participation is at a very high level, the economic, social political and the religious situation, in the Middle East has caused limitation of women‘s political participation. Therefore, remedial action to improve women‘s political participation further action should be taken after identification of impediments thereon. The recommendations can be cited as short term and long term. That is Establishing a welldisciplined military service, freedom of speech and media should be established, strengthen electoral procedures to be more consistent with international standards, safeguard constitutional rights, the developed democratic political institutions should be established, a secular state should be established, promote political reconciliation.