Abstract :
The use of parliamentary quotas to increase women’s political participation has gained a lot of traction in women’s empowerment discourse. Women’s movements worldwide have been working hard to make progress in ensuring a more equal representation of women in parties and parliament alike. So far during this decade, Morocco has emerged as one of the leading models for increasing women’s rights in the Arab world. In 2002, an informal agreement among political parties to establish a gender quota for women in parliament quickly gave Morocco one of the highest levels of women’s representation in the Arab region. Just two years later, women’s groups celebrated one of their greatest victories with the reform of the family code, moudawana, in 2004. Both of these events coincided with an increase in the number of women in positions of power. Despite the increased profile of Moroccan women in public life, the seven year experience of Morocco’s national list raises more questions than the answers it provides: Does the quota system encourage women to play a greater role in public service or to simply “occupy a seat?” What are the criteria used for selecting women to be on the national list? How have party leaders manipulated the quota system for their own purposes? How does the candidate selection process reproduce and strengthen clientelist practices? Once in parliament, do women MPs focus on the concerns of other women or are they constrained by many of the same informal rules and partisan loyalties as male MPs? Who do they represent?
