Municipal elections began on Saturday in Saudi Arabia in which women cast their votes for the first time.
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More than 900 women are running for seats on municipal councils, Saudi Arabia’s only elected public chambers.
Um Mohammed, a 47-year-old woman living near the Kuwaiti border, said her daughters helped to organise the campaign of a female candidate, but she herself would back a man.
A male voter in the eastern city of Hafr al-Batin said it was hard to know whether to support a woman candidate as men have been unable to meet them or see their faces.
“I don’t consider winning to be the ultimate goal… but it is the right of being a citizen that I concentrate on and I consider this a turning point”, said Hatoon Al-Fassi, general coordinator for the grassroots Saudi Baladi Initiative that worked closely with women to raise voter awareness and increase female participation in the election.
“Men and women have equal rights in many things”, she said, reciting a relevant verse from the Quran, and adding that everyone she encountered was supportive of her campaign. “If we allow her out of the house to do such business, who is going to take care of my sons?”
Saudi voters will be heading to the polls on Saturday to elect members of the municipal councils in its third session, which has been reviewed to allow voters to elect two-thirds of the total members instead of half, while the age of the eligible voters has been reduced from 21 to 18.
The Islamist monarchy, where woman are banned from driving and must cover themselves from head to toe in public, was the last country in the world where only men were allowed to vote.
They are up against nearly 6,000 men competing for places on 284 councils whose powers are restricted to local matters, including responsibility for streets, public gardens and rubbish collection.
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In line with Saudi Arabia’s strict gender segregation rules, men and women are casting ballots at separate polling stations.
