Initial results show 5 Saudi women elected for first time

The mayor of Mecca, Osama al-Bar, told The Associated Press on Sunday that candidate Salma al-Oteibi won in a village called Madrakah, about 93 miles (150 kilometers) north of the city which houses the cube-shaped Kaaba to which Muslims around the world pray.

She’s the only woman elected so far, although votes are still being counted in the municipal elections.

In Medina too one woman was elected. The Eastern Province, where minority Shias are concentrated, saw three women elected, he said.

Saudi candidate Amal Badreldin al-Sawari after casting her ballot in the capital Riyadh on December …

For the first time in the monarchy’s history, women have been elected to municipal councils in Saudi Arabia.

However, the 20 women candidates represent just one percent of about 2,100 municipal council seats. “However, 235 candidates, nine of them women, were stopped from participating due to violations, and they were penalized with SR50,000 each”.

Of course women’s participation was met with discrimination and refusal, according to Alarabiya, a lot of religious police forces were seen handing out pamphlets that accuse anyone who votes for women in elections as a sinner.

“Only 130,000 women registered to vote, compared with 1.36 million men”.

Uber has proved popular with women in the wealthy desert state to get around amid limited public transportation and general unease about the safety of taxis, said Al-Nahda’s Chief Executive Rasha Alturki. In total, some 47 percent of registered voters took part in Saturday’s election. According to election commission data, almost 1.5 million people aged 18 and above signed up for the polls.

A woman votes at a polling center during municipal elections, the first in which women could vote, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Voting is rare in the kingdom.

The northwestern Tabuk region had an 80 percent turnout for women against 44 percent for men.

In 2005, elections for half the numbers of the municipal councillors were held, with the other half appointed, and it included only male candidates and voters.

Nassima al-Sadah, an activist in Qatif, said the voting process was relatively smooth, unlike the registration.

Sahar Hassan Nasief, an activist and retired lecturer from King Abdullaziz University’s English and European languages department, said women comprise nearly half of the population in the Kingdom, so participating and winning in the election allows them to talk about women’s rights and contribute in the development of the country. “It shows how much Saudi society has progressed on the issue of not only accepting, but actually supporting women in public office, and this could mean that more change is to come”.

But women still require permission from male family members to travel, work or marry.