Egyptian women in ‘revealing attire to be banned’ from voting

The Egyptian government has issued an order banning women in revealing clothes from voting in the parliamentary elections scheduled to be held next week.

Major General Refaat Komsan, election affairs advisor to the prime minister, said rules and social traditions and customs must be respected as “it is not acceptable for a woman in revealing clothes to enter a polling station to vote in the elections which are expected to be a democratic carnival.”

Last week it was reported that all niqab-wearing women will only cast ballots if they remove the face veil while voting, for ID verification purposes.

The first round of election results will be announced on October 30 while the second round of results will be anoounced on December 4, Komsan said, adding that parliament’s first sessions are expected to be held before the end of 2015.

Komsan said that elections will take place in 27,000 sub-committees in 11,000 schools across Egypt, noting that the number of voters is around 55.6 million.

According to Komsan, the voters will get two voting cards, a white one to choose specific candidates and a green one to choose a list.

Egypt's House of Representatives is made up of 568 seats, with 448 elected as individuals and 120 through winner-takes-all lists.

Komsan also said that 87 local and international organizations and 61 embassies will monitor the poll.

This article is available in Arabic.