Saudi Arabia allows women to participate in elections for the first time

Saudi women began their first ever campaigns for
public office on Sunday, in a step forward for
women’s rights in the conservative kingdom’s
slow reform process.
More than 900 women are standing in the
December 12th municipal elections, which will
also mark the first time women are allowed to
vote in Saudi Arabia.
Ruled by King Salman, the oil-rich state has no
elected legislature but has faced intense western
scrutiny over its human rights record.

The country’s first municipal elections were held
in 2005, followed by another vote in 2011, but in
both cases only men were allowed to participate.
“We will vote for the women even though
we don’t know anything about them,” Um
Fawaz, a teacher in her 20s, said in Hafr al-
Batin city. “It’s enough that they are
women.”
The absolute monarchy, which applies its strict
interpretation of Islam, has faced widespread
criticism for its lack of equal rights. Saudi Arabia
is the only country where women are not allowed
to drive. They must also cover themselves in
black from head to toe in public and require
permission from male family members to travel,
work or marry.
The late King Abdullah introduced the elections in
2005 and said women would participate in this
year’s vote. In 2013, he also appointed women to
the Shura council, which advises the cabinet.
Abdullah died in January and was succeeded by
Salman, who stuck to the election timetable.
About 7,000 people are vying for seats on 284
municipal councils in the vote, the Saudi electoral
commission said. Only about 131,000 women
have signed up to vote, compared with more than
1.35 million men, out of a native Saudi population
of almost 21 million.

Aside from transport problems, women say
registration to vote was hindered by bureaucratic
obstacles and a lack of awareness of the process
and its significance.
There is also disappointment at the performance
of local councils and their limited powers –
restricted to streets, public gardens and rubbish
disposal.
Although the voting age has been lowered to 18
from 21 and the proportion of elected council
members has increased to two-thirds, winning a
seat remains a challenge for women in an
electorate where male voters vastly outnumber
them.
Nassima al-Sadah, a candidate in the Gulf coast
city of Qatif, said officials told her late on
Saturday that her name had been removed from
the list. “I don’t know why,” she told Agence
France-Presse. Her campaign was on hold as she
tried to obtain clarification.
Al-Sadah was planning to be a particularly active
candidate, she said, with a social media
onslaught supported by traditional banners and
brochures, none of which would be allowed to
carry her picture – a restriction that also applies
to male candidates.
In Hafr al-Batin, in the east of the country, an
official poster promoting the elections and
containing a drawing of a man and a woman had
been defaced, with the woman’s face slashed out.
Because of the kingdom’s strict separation of
sexes – which applies to election facilities as it
does elsewhere in public – candidates wishing to
meet directly with voters will have to meet
women one day and men the next, with a male
spokesman addressing the men.
Saud al-Shammry, a 43-year-old Riyadh resident,
said it was time for a new approach. “We strive
for development and real change, free from tribal
or family biases,” he said.
He said there was “a big possibility” he could vote
for a woman, if her platform was convincing.
Ahmed, a government worker in Hafr al-Batin, saw
no problem with having women candidates but
said:
“Why not? They are just there to decorate
the government anyway,”