Saudi women to get right to vote
Women in Saudi Arabia are to be given the right to vote and run in municipal elections, the Gulf Kingdom's King Abdullah announced yesterday.
He said they would also have the right to be appointed to the consultative Shura Council.
The news will be welcomed by activists who have long called for greater rights for women in the ultra-conservative kingdom.
The changes will take effect from next year, the king said.
King Abdullah announced the move in a speech at the opening of the new term of the Shura Council.
"Because we refuse to marginalise women in society in all roles that comply with sharia, we have decided, after deliberation with our senior ulama [clerics] and others... to involve women in the Shura Council as members, starting from next term," he said.
"Women will be able to run as candidates in the municipal election and will even have a right to vote."
Women's rights activists have long fought to gain the right to vote in the kingdom that applies a strict version of Sunni Islam and bans women from driving or travelling without the consent of a male guardian.
More than 60 intellectuals and activists called in May for a boycott of the ballot because "municipal councils lack the authority to effectively carry out their role" and "half of their members are appointed," as well as because they exclude women.
In April, a group of women defied the ban by turning up at a voter registration office in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, in a rare public demonstration against the male-only electoral system.
And on June 17, a group of defiant Saudi women got behind the steering wheels of their cars in response to calls for nationwide action against deriving ban.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has publicly thrown her support behind the campaign, saying that "what these women are doing is brave, and what they are seeking is right."
Although not everyone will welcome the decision, such a reform will ease some of the tension that has been growing over the issue, say analysts.
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