‘ I cried with joy’
First Saudi women elected in landmark municipal vote.
• Saudi Arabia has elected 19 female politicians to municipal posts following a historic poll that allowed women to vote and run as candidates for the first time.
“When I was told that I won, I cried with joy, the happiness of any human being who gets something for the first time,” said Salma bint Hazab al- Otaibi, who won a seat in the Madrika district of Mecca.
The election marked an important step forward in a country where women are banned from driving and are legally dependent on a male relation for most decisions.
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 sites
Though not many women were expected to win seats, even limited gains are seen as a step forward for women who had previously been completely shut out of elections.
General Election Commission spokesman Hamad AlOmar said that out of 130,000 female registered voters, a staggering 106,000 cast ballots, or roughly 82 per cent.
More than 1.35 million men had registered to vote, with 44 per cent, or almost 600,000, casting ballots.
Al- Omar said 19 women won seats in 10 different regions, with results still to be announced in several more regions.
The conservative capital of Riyadh saw the most women candidates win, with four elected. The Eastern Province, where minority Shiites are concentrated, saw three women elected, he said.
The mayor of the city of Mecca, Osama al-Bar, told the AP that a woman won in a village called Madrakah, about 150 kilometres north of the city which houses the cube-shaped Kaaba to which Muslims around the world pray.
Saudi Arabia’s s econd largest and most cosmopolitan city, Jiddah, elected two women, as did one of the most conservative regions, Qassim.
Around 7,000 candidates, among them 979 women, were competing for 2,100 seats across the country. The councils are the only government body elected by Saudi citizens.
Other women hailing from the kingdom’s northernmost areas won, with two elected in Tabuk, and one in al- Jawf. Additionally, a woman won in Saudi Arabia’s southern border area of Jizan and another 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 centres with sports and cultural activities, improved roads, better garbage collection and overall greener cities.
In Jiddah, three generations of women from the same family cast ballots 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.