The six Lebanese women voted into parliament

The six Lebanese women voted into parliament
The landmark 6 May election saw a record 86 women run, with virtually every party - except Shia movement Hizballah - putting forward female candidates.
3 min read
The landmark 6 May election saw a record 86 women run. [Getty]

Lebanon's new parliament will include six female lawmakers across the country, up from just four in the 2009-era parliament with several fresh faces.

The landmark 6 May election saw a record 86 women run, with virtually every party - except Shia movement Hizballah - putting forth female candidates.

Here is an overview of the women who scored a spot in Lebanon's 128-member legislative body. 

Paula Yacoubian

The high-profile television journalist landed a seat in the capital Beirut after running on a list of outsiders known as Kulluna Watani. 

"This is the real change, the real opposition," she told AFP during her campaign. 

The 42-year-old daughter of an Armenian genocide survivor long hosted a show on the channel owned by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, but she stepped down to run for office.

Yacoubian is the only candidate from outside the traditional political class to have won a seat. 

Roula Tabsh

Lawyer Roula Tabsh is also a first-time victor in the capital, but she ran on Prime Minister Saad Hariri's Future Movement list, which was otherwise dealt a blow at the polls. 

Tabsh pledged to advocate for women's rights in parliament, including making sure children with Lebanese mothers and foreign fathers can get Lebanese nationality. 

The wins by Tabsh and Yacoubian will usher in the highest female representation in parliament ever for Beirut. 

Bahia Hariri

The sister of slain ex-premier Rafiq Hariri and aunt of current Hariri kept the seat she has held in Lebanon's southern district of Sidon. 

At 65, she has served as a member of parliament four times and as education minister and was awarded a Legion d'Honneur by former French President Jacques Chirac in 2003.

She is a member of the prime minister's inner circle.

Her life was turned upside down by her brother's assassination in 2005. She stopped wearing skirt-suits and make-up and began covering her hair with a traditional white headscarf. 

Sethrida Geagea

The 50-year-old politician from Lebanon's northern district of Bcharreh will return for another term in parliament. 

She is married to Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea, and is credited with steering the party for 11 years while he was detained during Syria's military occupation of Lebanon, until his release in 2005.

She is seen as a hardliner within the movement and is often accused of being anti-Muslim. 

Inaya Ezzedine

A pathologist by training, 57-year-old Ezzedine has served as minister for administrative reform - but her rise to parliament is unprecedented.

It will be her first term as a legislator, but also the first time Lebanon's port city of Tyre has a female representative. Ezzedine hails from the Amal Movement, a strong Shia Muslim party that is allied to Hizballah and has never put forward a female candidate. 

Ezzedine is divorced and is a mother of two daughters.   

Dima Jamali

Jamali is a professor of business management and freshman parliamentarian, who will serve in Lebanon's second city Tripoli after running on the Future Movement's list

Her father was the mayor of the coastal metropolis in the north, but it has never before been represented by a woman. 

"We have a historic opportunity to bring new faces to Tripoli," she said in a campaign video before the vote. 

Women at the vote

Among those that did not win seats are Joumana Haddad, a writer and activist who ran in Beirut, and an all-women's list from the conservative northern area of Akkar. 

But Lebanese women flooded the polling stations on Sunday, both as voters and party delegates. Females made up 50.8 percent of registered voters in 2018, according to the United Nations.