Egyptian women\'s support key to electing next president

Egyptian women stand in line to vote in the presidential election Egyptian women have shown considerable presence in Egypt\'s recent presidential elections, as reports emerged of many women voting for Nasserist candidate Hamdeen Sabbahy and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, as one of them is believed to contest the presidency with Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Morsi, in the second round of elections.
Arabstoday talked to some prominent female figures to ask about their opinions about this issue:
The director of the Egyptian Centre for Women Rights, Nehad Abul Komsan said: \"It is true that women\'s votes were very influential in the presidential elections, according to reports by independent observers. They talked about large numbers of housewives who were keen to cast their vote, there were also women aged more than 70 or 80 years who came to vote, but unfortunately this positivity showed by Egyptian women are not rewarded by adequate representation in political institutions, so we demand that women\'s representation in the constituent assembly shouldn\'t be less than 30 percent or 40 percent of the members as a minimum.\"
On whether reports of most women voting for Sabbahy and Shafiq were true, she said: \"This phenomenon is linked to attention shown by the two candidates to women\'s causes, in contradiction to the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi, as the Brotherhood is believed to adopt very conservative stances towards women\'s rights...so I warn them that keeping this vision will ruin their chances when Morsi challenges either Sabbahy or Shafiq in the second round of the presidential race, as well as any elections in the future.\"
Radio presenter and political activist Bothaina Kamel failed to qualify for the presidential elections as she was unable to secure 30,000 signatures from the citizens to support her bid. Bothaina stated that most candidates have ignored women\'s demands in their programmes, although women voting was proven to be a key element in deciding the winner.
She added: \"I will not vote either for the Brotherhood candidate or any of the former regime\'s remnants (referring to Shafiq), as I refuse to be involved in this crime. I hope Egyptian women will keep defending their rights, even if the winning candidate will try to ignore them. We have to struggle to protect women\'s rights and enhance their role in Egyptian society. I was happy to read reports about women who firmly refused to sell their votes or to let themselves be victims of fraud, and I expect this positive attitude to remain.\"
The head of the National Council for Women, Mervat al-Talawi expressed her happiness with the the massive numbers of women who participated in the elections. The council has received more than 300 complaints from women who reported attempts to rig their votes or buy their support, particularly by the Brotherhood, while others reported that they discovered other people had voted in their names. \"Reporting these violations is a sign of positivity and a high level of awareness, and this indicates that women will have more influence in society in the future,\" said al-Talawi.
Finally, Nermine Ali, one of the observers in a polling  station in Cairo said she had noticed heavy participation by women in the elections, as some came holding their babies and standing for hours to cast their votes, while elderly women waited with their walking sticks sticks to cast their vote. \"I can\'t tell who all the women voted for, but I could assume the veiled women voted Morsi, while the majority voted for Sabbahy -- who secured the youth votes -- and Shafiq who enjoyed the support of elderly women,\" said Ali.