By Dr. Radhasyam Brahmachari
On April 4, 2006, Kuwaiti women made history by voting and contesting in a local by-election for the first time, after the parliament granted them right to suffrage the previous year. “Today is the biggest feast we have been waiting for more than 40 years”, said Ms Khaledah al-Khadher, one of the two female contestants, to journalists at a polling station in suburb of the town Salwa. “This is the first time Kuwaiti women can show the men that we are capable, it is important that we do our best and leave the outcome to Allah”, she added. In the said by-election, some 28,000 voters, about 16,000 of them women, cast ballots to elect a MP from eight contestants, including two women.
It may be recalled here that in the first week of December, 1999, jubilant mullahs and their supporters in the streets of Kuwait City celebrated the defeat of a bill in Kuwaiti parliament that sought to approve women’s right to vote and contest in parliamentary election. The incident was enough to understand the unwillingness of the chauvinistic Arab men to allow full citizenship to their woman folk. It may be mentioned here that, among the conservative Gulf countries, only Kuwait has an elected legislature, while the rest are ruled by dictatorship in one form or another. While dissolving the parliament in May 1998, Kuwait’s Amir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad al-Sabah, issued a decree granting women the same political rights as enjoyed by men. But the newly elected, parliament rejected the decree in the last week of November, 1999, by a narrow margin of 32–30 votes. It took another five years for the bill to be tabled again in 2004; and fortunately, it could gather more supporters this time round as sundry conservative members of the parliament crossed floor, joined the liberal camp and helped Kuwaiti women win their voting right. Read more ...
On April 4, 2006, Kuwaiti women made history by voting and contesting in a local by-election for the first time, after the parliament granted them right to suffrage the previous year. “Today is the biggest feast we have been waiting for more than 40 years”, said Ms Khaledah al-Khadher, one of the two female contestants, to journalists at a polling station in suburb of the town Salwa. “This is the first time Kuwaiti women can show the men that we are capable, it is important that we do our best and leave the outcome to Allah”, she added. In the said by-election, some 28,000 voters, about 16,000 of them women, cast ballots to elect a MP from eight contestants, including two women.
It may be recalled here that in the first week of December, 1999, jubilant mullahs and their supporters in the streets of Kuwait City celebrated the defeat of a bill in Kuwaiti parliament that sought to approve women’s right to vote and contest in parliamentary election. The incident was enough to understand the unwillingness of the chauvinistic Arab men to allow full citizenship to their woman folk. It may be mentioned here that, among the conservative Gulf countries, only Kuwait has an elected legislature, while the rest are ruled by dictatorship in one form or another. While dissolving the parliament in May 1998, Kuwait’s Amir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad al-Sabah, issued a decree granting women the same political rights as enjoyed by men. But the newly elected, parliament rejected the decree in the last week of November, 1999, by a narrow margin of 32–30 votes. It took another five years for the bill to be tabled again in 2004; and fortunately, it could gather more supporters this time round as sundry conservative members of the parliament crossed floor, joined the liberal camp and helped Kuwaiti women win their voting right. Read more ...
Source: Islam Watch
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