Debaiba’s new cabinet fails to meet the pledged UN quota for women

The list of cabinet members consists of 27 ministers, 6 state ministers and 2 deputies for the prime minister.

Despite signing a pledge during the United Nations led peace process in Geneva to assign women 30% of ministerial roles, prime minister Debaiba assigned just five of all ministerial roles to women, accounting for only just 14% of all senior positions.

The role of foreign minister historically went to Lamia Abuesderia, the first women to ever hold the post. She was previously the representative of women in Al-Watan Party and is currently working as an advisor to the Minister of Enterprise Structuring. She was a representative of women for her party internationally since 2012.

Other female picks were the minister of justice, which for the first time went to Halima Ibrahim Abdulrahman, and the Minister of Social Affairs which went to Aafaa Al-Kelani, with Marin Khalid Alttayib as Minister of State for Women’s Affairs and Mabrouka Toufi Aoki as Minister of Culture.

While five senior positions going to women is a step in the right direction for female representation in Libya, it is only half of what the new executive authority pledged they would assign women during their election process.

Libya’s parliament is expected to hold a session to conduct the vote of confidence in the new executive authority and confirm Debaiba’s new cabinet this Monday in Sirte.

It is worth noting that if the House of Representatives of Libya fails to confirm the new executive authority by the assigned deadline, the vote of confidence will then go to the members of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF), Debaiba cannot afford to lose favour with the female members of the forum should he hope to get his confirmation.