Among the newcomers to win in the recent elections, Ghinwa
Jalloul, 38, is just one of ~three female members of parliament.
Running on Rafic Hariri’s ticket, she beat out prime minister
Salim Hoss with more than double the votes. With a PhD in
computer science from the University of Technology in
Australia, Jalloul has taught at the American University of
Beirut and worked with the ministry of administrative reform to
introduce computer technology. ExecuT1ve recently spoke to
Jalloul about her plans as an MP
You won against the first Lebanese prime minister in history to lose
his seat. How does that feel?
JALLOUL I feel that I’ve achieved something, not only for myself,
but also, for women in general and for professionals who would like to
participate in recreating Lebanon, but have always felt alienated. The
responsibility in this respect is enormous.
As far as Dr Hoss is concerned, I never considered my running for elections
as something against him or his seat. There were other candidates
in the running and we were all competing for the same seat. I look at
it as my right to run for a seat, like every Lebanese.
Do you Intend on working to Improve the legal status of women?
JALLOUL Supporting women is on my agenda and on that of the
group I belong to in parliament. There is legislation that can be
changed to support women. When a Lebanese woman marries a foreigner
she can’t give him citizenship; the citizenship issue I think is a
fair right for women. There are women and organizations that have been
working on these issues for a very long time. I don’t intend to take their
role; I appreciate what they’ve done and would like to cooperate.
One part is related to the legal aspect of marriage and other issues.
Lebanon is a group of many sects and personal status laws have to take
into consideration specific issues related to the different sects and religious
groups. I don’t think that we should address this independent of
the whole situation of political confessionalism. Change should start
there, and there should be dialogue among the different groups in order
to reach solutions that would satisfy all Lebanese.
How do you plan to promote IT and e-commerce?
JALLOUL First we can use IT to reform the administration and we
need to make our laws consistent with using IT as a basis for our work.
This would improve efficiency so that people feel that there are institutions
supporting them and this would reflect on the economy positively.
With reform, business would flow in a smoother manner. This
is a long-term thing and it needs to be worked out with care.
There needs to be a plan to provide better infrastructure and improve regulations
in relation to telecommunications and e-commerce, by providing
government support so that IT can flourish at the private sector level.
can IT become as vibrant a sector here as It Is elsewhere In the world?
JALLOUL This is indeed a possibility, but we have to give it the proper
platform. We have the most important component – the human
resources, here and abroad. If you provide the proper support from the
government in terms of regulations and probably taxes, we can make
it happen.
Are you Interested In a post as minister, and If so which would Interest you?
J ALL OU L Why not? Being a woman doesn’t mean that I’m not interested
or that I’m not capable of getting such a position. As for what position,
I’ll leave that. If anything comes through then we’ll see.
What should be the priorities of the new government and parliament?
J A LL OU L First there should be a new vision of what is needed to get out
of this economic crisis. I think this is priority number one for both – full
cooperation to agree on a vision and for all parties involved to look forward.
can a new prime minister and government make a difference?
JALLOUL Yes. When I decided to run my choice was Hariri, because
l saw how he operated as prime minister. I believe in the vision he was
implementing. I could see it would lead Lebanon in a positive direction.
I believe Hariri could make a difference, because he’s a successful person,
he has contacts outside and being in that position gives confidence.
But the debt grew and the recession began under Hariri.
JALLOUL When we came out of the civil war, Lebanon was devastated.
A major plan was needed to move the country forward. So there
was money spent on reconstruction, on education, on medical care. A
lot of money was spent, which is where part of the large debt came from.
But the economic situation was bad when Hariri came to power.
The criticism is that he was borrowing money all the time. This government
borrowed more money but never invested in projects, and this
is why the economy went into recession. Hariri was borrowing money
and investing. The economy was growing; now growth is negative. If
Hariri’s approach was given the chance to continue we would have its
positive results. With him back in office, we would be able to get out
of the recession.
