This year marks a tremendous occasion for Saudi Arabian women, who are now eligible to cast votes and stand as candidates in municipal elections.
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At least 14 women won municipal council seats in Saturday’s poll, far exceeding expectations in the ultra-conservative kingdom.
Saudi voters elected 20 women for local government seats, according to results released to The Associated Press on Sunday, a day after women voted and ran in elections for the first time in the country’s history.
They were up against almost 6,000 men competing for places on 284 councils whose powers are restricted to local affairs including responsibility for streets, public gardens and rubbish collection.
As a result, women accounted for less than 10 percent of registered voters and few female candidates were expected to be elected.
She was running against seven men and two women, he added. Many others said they simply didn’t care.
Saudi women vote at a polling center during the municipal elections, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 12, 2015.
The election was the first in which women could vote and run as candidates, a landmark step in a country where women are barred from driving and are legally dependent on a male relative to approve nearly all their major life decisions. Municipal councils are the only part of the Saudi government which is filled democratically, and the local councils mainly oversee community-level issues. For the women elected, the win is more symbolic than powerful. Another woman won in Saudi Arabia’s southern border area of Jizan and another won in al-Ahsa. During the campaign female candidates were allowed to speak only to female audiences.
Men and women vote separately in the kingdom, where the sexes are strictly segregated.
“I have goosebumps”, said Ghada Ghazzawi, a businesswoman, as at a polling station in an upscale neighborhood in Jeddah.
When we say that it is the mother of all surprises, we remember the first experience that Kuwaiti women had of municipal council elections in 2006 which was the first experience that Kuwaiti women had of standing as candidates.
A teacher from the small bedouin town of Mudrika, outside the holy city of Mecca, was the first woman to be declared a victor.
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Though this election is a bold step for women inclusion in Saudi Arabia, it does not mean that women have equal rights as men in the kingdom.
