Lebanon

Beirut, 12 December 2022 – Today, UN Women and ESCWA jointly launched a report on women’s political participation entitled “Women at the Table: Insights from Lebanese Women in Politics”. The report analyses a set of seven in-depth interviews with female Lebanese political actors and explores the challenges and opportunities they faced in office.

Lebanese women are still excluded from the main decision-making positions in Lebanon, such as the presidency of the Republic, premiership and parliament speaker, despite their prominent presence in the human rights and diplomatic fields, and in international forums. There has also been improvement in female representation in the Lebanese Parliament in the last elections that took place in May 2022, with 8 women winning seats, in the best representation of women nominated and reaching the Parliament in the history of the country.

The Minister of Interior, Bassam Al-Mawlawi, officially announced the results of the parliamentary elections in which 1,043 candidates competed for seats of power.

Women’s participation was remarkable this time, with an initial number of 155, making up nearly 15% of the sum of contestants. However, 113 of them remained in the race till the end.

BEIRUT  — When the March 15 filing deadline for candidates to register in May's parliamentary elections had passed, 157 women* had signed up to run making up some 15 percent of the 1,043 total candidates, compared to 11 percent in the 2018 polls.

They included both new and old faces, members of establishment political parties and of a range of opposition groups.