Mervat al-Talawy has been elected as head of the National Council for Women and Nehal Aboul Komsan has been elected secretary general, the Council announced during the first meeting of its new board Sunday.
Talawy served as Egypt's Minister of Insurance and Social Affairs from 1997 to 1999. She held ambassadorships in Japan and Austria, and served as Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia in the UN in 2001. She recently became a founding member of the Egyptian Democratic Party.
Farkhonda Hassan, the former secretary general of the National Council for Women, said that she will continue to serve as secretary general of the council and that she would not leave the board until a new president and secretary general were elected.
