Women Occupy 0.75 % of High Ranking Posts in Algeria

The women quota in the election councils is still sowing controversy among the political scene.

Spokesman for the Islamic Ennahda Movement, Mohamed Hadibi, told Echorouk reporter that women occupy 0.75 percent of high ranking posts in state institutions, as among the 40 thousand high ranking officials, 300 of which are women, only.

Such figures “forced” Mr Hadibi to express skepticism over the intention of the regime to impose the 33 percent female quota in the electoral lists in the coming legislative and local elections.

“Shifting from 0.75 percent of women serving in state institutions to 33 percent in electoral lists as required by the new law, which establishes a quota for female candidates in the 2012 parliamentary vote, is a step into the unknown,” Mr Hadibi said.

He further specified that “the regime should have implemented the quota system gradually, and step by step,” while “the irony is how come a regime that failed in promoting the presence of women within state positions, tries now to impose on political parties to adhere more female candidates!” Hadibi wondered. 

Mohamed Djomaa, Spokesman for Islamist Society for Peace Movement (MSP), one of the three party alliance in power, shared the opinion of Ennahda official, saying “the government contradicts itself: the presence of women in the state institutions is limited, while the government tends to impose on political parties to reserve 1/3 of their candidates list to women!”

The government should have started implementing this system quota within institutions, to encourage political parties to do the same, Mr Djomaa explained.

However, spokesman for the FLN, one of the three-party alliance in power, Kassa Aissa, said his party refuses implementing the quota principle in political posts, given that “we consider that candidates are chosen on the base of competence and ability, whatever the sex and gender are.”