Saudi Arabia is holding municipal elections on Saturday, in which for the first time women will be allowed to vote and run for public offices.
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Men and women vote separately in the kingdom, where the sexes are strictly segregated, but the vote is a tentative step towards easing restrictions that are among the world’s tightest on women.
The decision to allow women to take part in election was taken by late King Abdullah. Today’s municipal poll was a landmark in which about 980 women took part as candidates for the council seats and more than 130,000 women were registered to vote.
Gender segregation at public facilities meant that female candidates were unable to directly meet the majority of voters – men – during their campaigns.
In the decree four years ago, Abdullah stated that 20% of Shura Council members have to be women.
Male-only polls were first held in 2005.
She added: “We are looking at it as an opportunity to exercise our right and to push for more”.
And they can’t go to the polling stations without male chaperones.
Despite vast differences between Saudi Arabia’s cultural sensitivities and the bombast often associated with campaigns in the West, criticism of women’s participation has largely been muted, though one prominent cleric warned against this being a Western-style election.
Sultana al-Sultan, a 25-year-old woman seeking work in corporate management, is registered in the Riyadh suburb of Quwaiyah and will probably vote for one of the female candidates.
“To tell you the truth, I’m not running to win”, said Dr Amal Badreldin al-Sawari, 60, a female paediatrician in central Riyadh.
Not only have legal barriers made campaigning hard, the women have also had to battle conservative male voters, who oppose women’s participation in mixed society. Women still aren’t allowed to obtain driver’s licenses in Saudi Arabia; in November, a handful of activists for women’s driving rights in the country were abruptly disqualified as candidates in tomorrow’s elections. “I voted for a man because I lack information about the women”, he said. While there is no quota for women, the king may use his powers to ensure at least some women get onto the councils.
“Any organisation that has women in it is always a move in the right direction and this is not only because of the idea of equal representation but it is because women bring with them a whole trove of thought processes that can only help society move in the right direction”.
But things have been changing for women in recent years, if at a glacial place compared to much of the rest of the world. She ran several workshops to educate women about campaigning and electioneering.
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She said women must continue to press Saudi leaders. “He also has a good personality and we have never heard anything negative about him”, she said. Earlier news reports said that close to 1,071 women tried to register as candidates, but that a number dropped out because of the high cost of media campaigns, low levels of awareness about the importance of the elections, and the absence of women’s support programs.
