almotamar.net - Director of the Democracy School in Yemen, an organisation concerned with democracy and human rights, said Saturday that all arrangements are completed for a project of woman parliament in Yemen.
Director of the School Jamal al-Shamy told almotamar.net the goal of the parliament is qualification of women to take part in the parliamentary experiment of 2009 considering the present parliament as not having women MPs except the one MP Oras Sultan Naji representing the General People's Congress.
On her part the director of the woman parliament project said the woman parliament aims at the 162 Yemeni women who nominated themselves in the previous parliamentary and local elections, and who represent different political parties. The aim is to make them engage in the election process of parliament and local elections that Yemen is experiencing as part of the democratic pursuit the pillars of which have been laid by President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Ms Muna al-Harithi added to almotamar.net the projects aims at preparing women to participate in the parliamentary process of 2009 without the need for their partisan qualification. There will also be discussion of the woman issues every three months by holding one meeting every three months as well as encouraging the woman to elect women regardless of the partisan affiliation, affirming that the project will not confine the woman inside one closed circle but rather would unleash the woman abilities to interact with the issues undertaken by the parliament as a legislative power.
She said the project will begin next August by holding the first meeting of the parliament to be chaired by the eldest member and to elect speaker and her two deputies. Participants in the parliament will be informed that the shadow parliament is a non-governmental and non-partisan establishment even if some of its members are party affiliates. Also, she said, the meeting will discuss and define the form in which announcement of results of meetings as well as proposals and ideas in addition to providing necessary mechanisms for continuation of this experiment.