Kuwait nearing voting rights for women
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-20 09:53

In a major step toward granting political rights to women in Kuwait, lawmakers agreed Tuesday to permit them to vote and run in local council elections, although the measure requires more legislative action before it becomes law.

The bill passed on a 26-20 vote, with three abstentions. The session was attended by more than three-quarters of the 64 lawmakers and Cabinet ministers entitled to vote.

A second reading and a second vote, expected in two weeks, is required. Then it needs the Kuwaiti ruler's signature, generally a formality. The emir has made it clear that he supports political rights for women.

Kuwaiti Women Right's activist Rola Dashti, left, shares a light moment with Kuwait's Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al Sabah, right, at the entrance hall of the National Assembly building, Kuwait City after the Parliament session of Tuesday, April 19, 2005. Kuwait's law makers approved in this session a Municipal Council law allowing women to vote and run in the Council's elections.[AP]

"This is the first step. ... I hope women will run in these (municipal) elections, and we hope that the big step will be participation in parliament," said Rola Dashti, a women's rights activist.

Municipal elections are expected to be held in the second half of the year. The council comprises 16 members, six of whom are appointed by the emir.

The parliamentary moves are steps toward amending Kuwait's 1962 election law to allow women to enter politics — a subject of heated debate in the small Gulf emirate. The constitution gives men and women equal rights, but the election law limits the right to vote and run for office to men over 21 who are not in the police or the military.

"This bill is an achievement to broaden popular participation," liberal lawmaker Ahmed al-Mulaifi told the house.

But a Muslim fundamentalist legislator who voted against the bill, Mohammed al-Busairi, said Kuwait was taking the step because of pressure from the United States.

"The Kuwaiti society is a conservative one," he said.

Fundamentalists and conservative tribal leaders fear women will neglect duties of raising children and looking after husbands if they are permitted to vote and run for office. Political rights, they say, would lead to family breakdowns and children straying from Islamic teachings.

Kuwaiti women have reached high government posts, but extremists don't want them campaigning among men or receiving male voters in their offices.

Earlier this month, the Islamic Affairs Ministry ruled that Kuwait's emir, Sheik Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah, has the last word on granting women equal political rights if Muslim clerics disagree on the issue. He supports giving women the right to vote and seek office.

In 1999, Parliament quashed a women's rights decree issued by the sheik because it was signed when the legislature was not in session. Soon after, fundamentalist and tribal lawmakers narrowly defeated an identical bill.

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