AMN /
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is going to the polls in unprecedented municipal elections in which women can cast a ballot for the first time. Women are also standing as candidates, another first, despite the conservative kingdom being the only nation where women are not allowed to drive. Salma al-Rashed was the first woman to register to vote. She told the BBC it felt really good. Change is a big word but the election is the way to make sure we are really represented.
A total of 978 women have registered as candidates, alongside 5,938 men. About 130,000 women have registered to vote, officials say. That figure still falls well short of male voter registration which stands at 1.35 million.
A reported 1.48 million citizens, comprising 1.35 million men and 130,637 women, are registered to vote. Men and women will have separate voting stations. There are 6,917 candidates, of which there are 979 women, standing for 3,159 places on 284 councils, which should not exceed 30 members each.
There were 791,411 voters in the first elections and 405,783 in the second one. The third municipal elections were approved in a royal decree last year and will see two-thirds of the councils, or 2,106 elected, and one third appointed by the minister of municipal and rural affairs. The results are expected to be announced on Sunday.
These elections have garnered attention abroad from newspapers in the United States and the United Kingdom, and from the normally highly critical Middle East office of Human Rights Watch.
“Voting and running for the municipal council elections is a landmark achievement for Saudi women,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch. She urged the government to remove other barriers that may be holding back women’s advancement, according to a report on the organization’s website. There has been a similar positive response elsewhere, including an article published in the Washington Post on Dec. 9, stating that the elections, despite criticism locally and abroad about certain aspects, was “breaking new ground.”
The results of the elections are expected to be announced later on Saturday.