Women will also have to rely on men to drive them to polling stations. Around 130,000 women registered to vote in the country’s municipal elections, and 978 women are running as municipal candidates, Mashablereports.
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As candidates, saudi women are facing several difficulties because of the country’s strict laws, which forbid female candidates to address male candidates.
Women also said voter registration was hindered by bureaucratic obstacles, a lack of awareness of the process and its significance, and the fact that women could not drive to sign up.
In response to such perspectives, Uber, the popular online taxi-hailing service, is offering free rides for women to and from polling stations throughout Saudi Arabia, in an effort to help increase the number of women at the polls throughout the kingdom Saturday.
Results of the vote are due out later on this Sunday.
Al-Habbabi is one of the female candidates. “We are everywhere in our country the same as any man”, she said.
Municipal councils are the only government body in which Saudi citizens can elect their representatives.
The campaign has been a struggle however, with some women candidates barred from taking part and others withdrawing under pressure.
After finally casting her ballot, she felt relief.
“Even without the campaign I already know he’s a good man”, he said, declining to be named. “I thank God I am living it”. But not all women trying to break the mould in the conservative kingdom had such a positive experience.
As campaigning got under way last month, three activists said they had been disqualified from running.
This change is part of the late King Abdullah’s legacy.
“It feels great”, she said as she emerged, with a huge smile.
Alsnari said she had hardly slept Friday night. In a reminder of the continued gap between the two sexes, polling stations were segregated.
Though women make up just 10 per cent of registered voters, the right to simply cast a ballot sends a wider message to society, she said.
Amna Ahmed, a 23-year-old Quran teacher, didn’t bother to register to vote because she too believes Saudi women have no place in government. This includes about 119,000 women, out of a total native Saudi population of nearly 21 million.
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His group has called for an end to the male guardianship system, under which women are forbidden in policy and practice from obtaining a passport, marrying, traveling or accessing higher education without the approval of a male guardian.
Under King Abdullah, who died in January and who announced in 2011 that women would be able to vote in this election, steps were taken for women to have a bigger public role, sending more of them to university and encouraging female employment.
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Still, some are hopeful that while this election, in which almost 1,000 women are running for municipal office, is for local-level positions, it may open eventually the door to allow women to vote for and participate in the Shura Council, Saudi Arabia’s legislative assembly.
