Initial results show 19 Saudi women elected for first time

At least 15 women have been elected onto Saudi Arabia’s local councils for the first time, official results showed yesterday, marking a breakthrough in the conservative kingdom that still bans women from driving. The late King Abdullah, who died in January, issued a decree in 2011 ordering that women be allowed to vote in municipal elections and stand as candidates.

Al-Omar said the historic election drew a staggering 106,000 female voters out of 130,000 who’d registered.

More than 1.35 million men had registered to vote, with 44 per cent, or nearly 600,000, casting ballots. A second woman, Hanouf bint Mufrih bin Ayid al- Hazmi, was elected in the northwestern region of Jawf, SPA said.

Sabq.org, a news website affiliated with the Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry, reported that a total of 17 women had been elected in various parts of the country. They ran against about 6,000 men competing for places on 284 councils whose powers are restricted to local affairs including responsibility for streets, public gardens and rubbish collection.

“The participation of women represents an important step forward in Saudi Arabia toward a more inclusive electoral process that will ensure all citizens are represented in a government accountable to all Saudi citizens”, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. The two previous rounds of voting for the councils, in 2005 and 2011, were open to men only as voters and candidates.

“It is precisely these kinds of community problems that female candidates hope to solve once elected to the municipal councils”. Councilors have a very limited mandate pertaining mainly to overseeing budgets. They are required to cover their heads, and are not allowed to drive.

Still, women face challenges on the campaign trail: Because of Saudi Arabia’s strict policy of segregation of the sexes, they can not address male voters directly and have to speak from behind a partition – or have male relatives speak for them.

Turnout was just over 47 percent of eligible voters.

“I want to see the woman be more involved in every institution in the government and in the private sector”. Jiddah resident Sahar Hassan Nasief, who voted for the first time this weekend alongside three generations of female family members, told the news outlet. “It was a thrilling experience”.

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