Saudi Arabia said on Sunday that three women and 17 men were elected to public office in the capital of the kingdom after winning seats on municipal councils in Riyadh.
Advertisement
The first was Salma bint Hizab al-Oteibi, who was elected to the council of Madrakah, in the city of Mecca.
In the western coastal city of Jeddah, one victor was Lama al-Suleiman, a prominent businesswoman and British-trained biochemist.
Around 7,000 candidates, among them 979 women, competed for 2,100 seats across the country.
Saudi women headed to polling stations across the kingdom on Saturday, as voters and candidates for the first time.
During the election campaign, candidates were not allowed to address voters of the opposite sex but were permitted to use segregated halls with audio and visual links.
It showed that in the mountainous Baha region, female turnout was around 82 percent, while about half the registered male electorate cast ballots.
More than 900 women were among the 6,440 candidates standing for seats on 284 councils. She is the daughter of Saudi businessman Abdulrahman al-Jeraisy, who is the chairman of the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and she is on several advisory committees to the chamber.
Two women won seats in Al Ahsa in Eastern Province, but their names were not immediately released.
As the polls took place, the hashtag #SaudiWomenVote started trending on social media as this historic elections brought the women in limelight in for the first time. The councils are the only government bodies elected by Saudi citizens. King Abudullah, who died in January 2015, announced that women would be able to participate in these elections in 2011.
At the end of the day, both man and womankind must take heed of the fact that has been disregarded in so many societies for so many years that, “When you educate a woman, you educate a nation…” Municipal councils are the only part of the Saudi government which is filled democratically, and the local councils mainly oversee community-level issues.
Advertisement
“These have been much more hard, they come from more conservative backgrounds”.
