Friday September 27, 2002 8:50 AM http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2046767,00.html RABAT, Morocco (AP) - For Aicha Hasmi, it became a familiar refrain: as a woman, your place is at home, men told her, not out on the streets campaigning to get elected to parliament. Hasmi and hundreds of other women were out to prove otherwise Friday, when Moroccans head for the polls. Under new election rules reserving seats for women, at least 30 of them were to get a place in parliament. After years of near exclusion, they were looking forward to shaking up this North African Muslim country - and perhaps others in the Arab world - by bringing fresh faces, ideas and pent-up feminine zeal to what until now has been almost exclusively a man's club. The election of so many women in one go - close to 10 percent of the 325 seats are reserved for women - is unprecedented for Morocco. The last parliament, elected in 1997, had just two women. On a frenetic final day of campaigning Thursday, Hasmi already was talking about the example she and the other 965 women competing Friday would set for their sisters elsewhere. ``All Arab women will say: 'Why not us?' And that's our message: Why not you?'' she said. ``I'm happy Morocco is going to be the first to take this step.'' The election will give Morocco one of the highest proportions of women lawmakers in the Arab world. Tunisia's 185-seat parliament has 21 women, while in Syria's 26 of the 250 lawmakers are women. Elsewhere in the region, women fare far worse: Egypt has only 11 women in a 454 seat parliament, Qatar none. Women in Kuwait are not allowed to vote or run for office. The election for the Moroccan parliament's lower house is the first since King Mohammed VI ascended the throne in July 1999 and set to work, slowly but surely, liberalizing the tightly controlled regime left by his late father, Hassan II. Mohammed's government promised to make the elections free and fair, a reform it hoped would help restore faith among those who Hasmi and other candidates encountered with depressing regularity on the campaign trail: Moroccans old and young who complained that the government has failed to tackle the poverty and chronic unemployment that make many lives here so tough. On Thursday, Laila Karim, another woman candidate, was glad-handing passers-by and distributing leaflets in Rabat when a street peddler interrupted to ask if her campaign workers wanted to buy a belt. The offer provoked laughs at first, but the conversation quickly turned serious when Karim asked him to support her. ``I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to vote. I no longer trust any politicians,'' the young man said heatedly. ``I'm jobless, what is going to change in my life if I vote?'' Such disenchantment provides fertile soil for Islamic fundamentalists who appear to gaining strength in Morocco, especially among the poor. A moderate Islamic fundamentalist party was among the 26 competing Friday. Polling was to start at 8 a.m and end 11 hours later. Women said they were eager to become forces for change once in parliament. Karim said that if elected she would push for reform of a Moroccan law that, among other restrictions, does not allow divorced women to keep custody of their children if they remarry and allows marriage at age 15. Women's associations and others have lobbied hard for more representation in parliament. ``It was a shame on Morocco and it was creating problems for Morocco's relations with the world,'' said Nouzha Skalli, who was competing in her tenth election Friday. She won just one of those races - a municipal council seat in 1997. ``Some people have told me that a woman's place is in the home. Men have said that. Women have encouraged me,'' said Hasmi. ``Women need women to represent them.'' |