|
| Saudi women vote at a polling center during the municipal elections, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2015. Women across Saudi Arabia marked a historic milestone on Saturday, both voting and running as candidates in government elections for the first time, but just outside polling stations they waited for male drivers — a reminder of the limitations still firmly in place. |
RIYADH, Saudi
Arabia (AP) -- 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 women who
won hail from vastly different parts of the country, ranging from Saudi
Arabia's largest city to a small village near Islam's holiest site.
The
20 female candidates represent just one percent of the roughly 2,100
municipal council seats up for grabs, but even limited gains are seen as
a step forward for women who had previously been completely shut out of
elections. Women are still not allowed to drive and are governed by
guardianship laws that give men final say over aspects of their lives
like marriage, travel and higher education.
Though
there are no quotas for female council members, an additional 1,050
seats are appointed with approval by the king who could use his powers
to ensure more women are represented.
Around
7,000 candidates, among them 979 women, competed in the election for a
seat on the municipal councils, which are the only government body
elected by Saudi citizens. The two previous rounds of voting for the
councils, in 2005 and 2011, were open to men only.
The
conservative capital of Riyadh saw the most women candidates win, with
four elected. The Eastern Province, where minority Shiites are
concentrated, saw two women elected, said Hamad Al-Omar, who heads the
General Election Commission's media council.
Saudi
Arabia's second largest and most cosmopolitan city, Jiddah, also
elected two women, as did one of the most conservative regions, Qassim.
The
mayor of the city of Mecca, Osama al-Bar, told the AP that a woman 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.
Another woman won in Medina, where the Prophet Muhammad's first mosque was built.
Other
women hailing from the kingdom's northernmost areas won, with two
elected in Tabuk, one in al-Jawf and another in Hail. Additionally, a
woman won in Saudi Arabia's southern border area of Jizan, another in
Asir and two won in al-Ahsa.
Many women
candidates ran on platforms that promised more nurseries to offer longer
daycare hours for working mothers, the creation of youth community
centers with sports and cultural activities, improved roads, better
garbage collection and overall greener cities.
In
October, the Saudi Gazette reported that harsh road conditions and long
distances to the nearest hospital had forced some women in the village
of Madrakah, where one female candidate was elected, to give birth in
cars. The local newspaper reported that the closest hospital and the
nearest university were in Mecca, prompting some students to forgo
attending classes. The article said residents were also frustrated with
the lack of parks in the village.
It is
precisely these kinds of community issues that female candidates hope to
address once elected to the municipal councils. The councils do not
have legislative powers, but advise authorities and help oversee local
budgets.
Most ran their campaigns online,
using social media to get the word out, due to strict gender segregation
rules that ban men and women from mixing in public. This meant
candidates could not directly address voters of the opposite sex.
In
an effort to create a more level playing field for women who wear the
traditional full-face veil, the General Election Committee banned both
male and female candidates from showing their faces in promotional
flyers, billboards or online. They were also not allowed to appear on
television.
Still, al-Omar said the historic
election drew a staggering 106,000 female voters out of some 130,000
who'd registered. Out of 1.35 million men registered, almost 600,000
cast ballots. In total, some 47 percent of registered voters took part
in Saturday's election.
In Jiddah, three
generations of women from the same family voted for the first time. The
oldest woman in the family was 94-year-old Naela Mohammad Nasief. Her
daughter, Sahar Hassan Nasief, said the experience marked "the
beginning" of greater rights for women in Saudi Arabia.
"I
walked in and said 'I've have never seen this before. Only in the
movies'," the daughter said, referring to the ballot box. "It was a
thrilling experience."
