Coptic Christian rules as Egypt’s first female mayor

Published 9:29 pm Saturday, March 7, 2009

KOMBOHA, Egypt — Her father’s chair sits beneath the window to catch the morning light, where he once held forth with villagers who wanted him to discipline their sons, chase away thieves and settle land and dowry disputes on the lush fields between the Nile and the desert’s edge.

She eases into the high-back chair with the worn wooden armrests. A single woman of 53 wearing faded blue jeans and a pink blouse, her hair uncovered, she has her late father’s spirit and wisdom, though truth be told, she’d rather not know all the sins and untidy dramas of her friends and neighbors in this brick-and-mud village founded by her ancestors.

Few would have expected this place of millstones and poultry dealers to claim the “first” of anything. It’s there, though, in a picture frame: Eva Habil Kyrolos standing next to President Hosni Mubarak on the day she became Egypt’s first female mayor.

“People from nearby towns used to mock us, ‘Oh, you have a woman mayor now,’ ” said Osama Gamel, a car mechanic. “But you know what? She’s better than a man.”

Better than a man. Not a phrase one often hears in Egypt.

“I am part of history now. I am under the spotlight,” said Kyrolos.

“The villagers are getting used to a woman, but sometimes when they address me as mayor they use the male gender. I was once the ‘mayor’s daughter’ but I’m developing my own credentials. I’m a judge, but sometimes I have to be a mother to make them obey.”

She is not married; she knows what goes through people’s minds about this, but once she hit 40, her relatives quit asking. As a strict Copt, she said, divorce is forbidden so choosing someone means choosing him for life.

“I wanted an independent life,” she said. “But my father got sick in 1990. I was the only one of his six daughters not married. I felt an obligation to take care of him. It was the toughest decision I ever made. He died at 85 in 2002, but while he was ill, I helped him with his mayor duties, and I was intrigued and grew politically active. I worked on women’s rights issues to stop early marriage, female circumcision and I helped women get their voting cards.”

The mayor’s job is law and order, handling civil arguments and listening to woes unfolding amid sips of tea. Kyrolos has three deputy mayors and six guards, smiling men with Kalashnikov rifles. Crime is not a big problem, except for the bandits who robbed and ransacked a coffee shop.

She doesn’t yell or shout at the men who come before her; she tells them that legal action will be taken if they don’t move a car blocking the road or clean garbage from an empty lot. This talk of paperwork and court was a bit mystifying at first, but the villagers have grown accustomed to the mayor’s penchant for legalese.

“After my father died and until I was appointed, we had no mayor. A sense of egocentrism took over the village. People felt they could do whatever they wanted,” she said.

Most of her constituents are Copts. But the Muslim villagers, who tend their livestock and gather for daily prayers at a handful of mosques beneath a low skyline of crescents and crosses, mingle easily with the Christians.

The Muslims seem to like Kyrolos as much as the Christians, who will mention, with a more than discernible glow of pride, that it’s no big deal to have a female mayor because, as one Copt put it, “We don’t believe a woman’s body is a stigma to be covered in veils.”