First results from Saudi Arabia’s municipal elections announced

In 2012, late Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud announced that women would be given the right to vote and run in municipal elections for the first time in the country.

Saudi voters elected 20 women for local authorities seats, in accordance to outcomes let go to The Related Press on Sun., a day after women voted & ran in elections for the 1st time within the country’s historical past.

Prior to Saturday’s elections, Saudi Arabia was the last country in the world to involve women in politics.

At least 20 women won seats for the first time in Saudi Arabia’s municipal polls, the elections commission said on Monday, December 14.

While official results are expected to be announced later Monday, media reports say that women won seats in a range of councils across the country – from the country’s largest city to small villages, according to Al Jazeera.

According to Saudi officials, only a bit over 130,000 women voted in the election, out of nearly 1.5 million people who registered to vote. 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.

Female candidates could not meet face-to-face with male voters during campaigning, while neither men nor women could publish their pictures. Municipal council representatives deal with issues such as parking facilities and hospital improvements, and not the overarching issues that affect a society where women are still banned from driving and need a male guardian’s permission to have some surgical procedures.

Female voters said registration was hindered by factors including bureaucratic obstacles and a lack of transport. In total, some 47 percent of registered voters took part in Saturday’s election.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia boasts modern infrastructure of highways, skyscrapers and ever-more shopping malls.

Her daughter, Sahar Hassan Nasief, said the experience marked “the beginning” of greater rights in Saudi Arabia for women, who are not allowed to drive and are governed by laws that give men the ultimate say over aspects of their lives like marriage, travel and higher education. He appointed women as advisers despite opposition from many quarters. Just men participated in the 2005 and 2011 polls. However, it could also be a political move on the part of Saudi Arabia, considering it is now the head of the United Nations Human Rights Council.