posted April 01, 2006 03:34 AM            

Saudi Arabia 0%
Iran 4%
Pakistan 21%
Iraq 31%
USA: 15%

Sources: United Nations , Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq

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posted April 01, 2006 04:14 AM              

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Who is responsible for organizing the elections?

* The exclusive jurisdiction for the oversight, organization and conduct of the transitional elections has been vested in the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) - established by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) order 92 ( 31 May 2004 ).
* The IECI is also the authority responsible for certifying political parties, associations, groups and independent candidates as political entities – to compete in the election.

What is Iraq 's Proportional Representation (PR) System?

The system accommodates the goal for achieving women's representation and fair representation of minorities

The choice was further conditioned by the requirements of the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) , which included: the number of seats fixed at 275 , a goal of 25% representation of women and the fair representation of minorities

To meet the women's quota, a female candidate must be at least one of every three candidates in the order of a list.
http://www.un.org/news/dh/infocus/iraq/election-fact-sht.htm

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The other wild card here is the women. The interim constitution had specified that at least 25 percent of seats be apportioned to women. Somehow the United Nations committee for assisting the Iraqi elections managed to put that up to 33 percent. If Muqtada al-Sadr (who wants women all covered up and put in their places) and middle class Shiite women joined forces to put into power Ahmad Chalabi (a corrupt financier charged with spying for Iran), that would be about the most bizarre set of bedfellows in the history of parliaments.
http://www.juancole.com/2005/02/uia-will-hold-secret-ballot-chalabi.html

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Iraq: Interim Constitution Shortchanges Women
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/03/05/iraq7936.htm

posted April 01, 2006 04:25 AM              

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posted April 02, 2006 03:21 AM              

Quite a few countries in the world have had female prime ministers and presidents now.

America has not been one of them.

Pakistan has long been known for its liberalism in this matter. Benazir is one of the most prominent that comes to mind.

In the villages in Pak of course there is a lot of back@ss treatment of women.

But a VAST majority of the economy and politics is driven by the major cities (particularly Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore). Of the three Lahore borders a little bit more conservative, but Karachi and Islamabad are absolutely liberal. Women are almost quite equal with men (I Dont believe absolute equality can ever exist). In fact the number of women in masters programs and medical school is beginning to outnumber the men in quite a few colleges, leading to protests for reservations of at least 50 % of the seats for men.