Something historic is happening in Saudi Arabia this morning.
Advertisement
“I have goosebumps”, Ghada Ghazzawi, a businesswoman, told the Wall Street Journal as she entered a polling station in the coastal city of Jeddah.
Around 13,000 women have registered to vote in municipals council elections around the country.
Experts believe though the municipal council election is a modest one but it is a big step taken in opening space for a greater public voice for the women in the country despite several limitations such as ban of women driving. “Now we feel we are part of society, that we contribute”, Sara Ahmed, a physiotherapist, told Reuters. “We have been waiting for this day for a long time”.
This incremental expansion of voting rights has spurred some Saudis to hope the Al Saud ruling family, which appoints the national government, will eventually carry out further reforms to open up the political system.
Both male and female candidates relied heavily on social media this year to reach voters, using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to announce campaign events and explain their platforms, which include ideas such as creating more youth centers, nurseries, parks and improving roads.
The results of the election will be announced on Saturday.
Are you voting in Saudi Arabia?
Women and men remained segregated, as per the laws of the Kingdom, throughout the election campaign.
“There is no reason, if this is applied to municipal councils, that they would not apply it to the Shura”, said Riyadh Najm, a retired former government official in glasses and a neat gray beard.
Women in Saudi Arabia participated in the country’s elections – as both voters and candidates – for the first time ever on Saturday.
Even as women were allowed to run for office, candidates were forced to campaign from behind partitions or get a man to give speeches on their behalf.
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. A total of 5,938 men are running for the local offices, which mostly oversee planning and development issues. The King selects the other half, according to the U.S. State Department. More than 130,000 women registered to vote compared with 1.35 million men. Finally, in 2011, they agreed women would be allowed to vote in 2015.
But how much of an impact it will have is very much up in the air.
But women still face many restrictions. “We are everywhere in our country the same as any man”, she said. “The impact all depends on how the elections go”. Women outnumber male university graduates.
They are required to cover their heads, and may not drive.
“The vote is seen as a small step to open the way for a more equal role for women in this conservative Kingdom”.
Advertisement
The Saudi academic and women’s rights campaigner had to be driven there.
