Saudi Elections Include Women for First Time

At least 14 women won municipal council seats in Saturday’s poll, far exceeding expectations in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

Rasha Hefzi, who won her seat in Jeddah, said: “The presence of a woman in the council now will mean she can have access to some of the files that were previously inaccessible to some women in the past”.

Saudi voters elected 20 women for local government seats, according to results released to The Associated Press on Sunday, a day after women voted and ran in elections for the first time in the country’s history.

The five women hail from vastly different parts of the country, ranging from Saudi Arabia’s second largest and most cosmopolitan city to a small village near Islam’s holiest sites.

Female candidates expressed pride in running, even if they didn’t think they would win, while women voters, some of them tearful, said they were happy at finally being able to do something they had only seen on television.

Women dressed in hijabs – traditional Islamic clothing – exercised a valuable human right to vote in last Saturday’s local municipal elections.

Alya’a Mkeamen Al-Rowali, Huda Abdulrahman Al-Harbi and Jawaher Othman Al-Jerasi won three seats in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Female candidates also barred from speaking to male voters and required to segregate campaign offices.

Women can vote – but there are some other restrictions that still apply to women in Saudi Arabia. “I am not really anxious about the number, or to have any women winning”.

Despite the fact that female candidates have to speak behind a partition while campaigning, or be represented by a man, a total of 978 women have registered as candidates alongside almost 6,000 men. In contrast, more than 1.35 million men had registered to vote, with 44 percent, or nearly 600,000, casting ballots.

Male guardians are family members who must authorise a woman’s travel, work or marriage.

One of them was Loujain Hathloul, who was earlier jailed for over two months for trying to drive into the kingdom from the UAE.

While they may have little power, at the most basic level, the outcome of the elections reflects the aspiration and will of Saudi Arabian women to take part in decision-making and political life.

Columnist Abdulateef al-Mulhim, writing in Monday’s Arab News, suggested the polls are just the start of an expanded place for women in the kingdom, under Abdullah’s successor King Salman.