Kuwaiti Women Win First Parliamentary Seats.

[elleng]

Source: AP/NYT

KUWAIT CITY (AP) -- Official results announced on state television show that Kuwaiti women have won parliamentary elections for the first time, garnering four seats.



Read more: http://nytimes.com/aponline/2009/05/17/world/AP-ML-Kuwait-Election-Women.html

[proteus_lives]

1. Great!

It's a good start. With four seats will they be able to do much? I would be very interested to watch a session of parliament to see how they are treated.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Encouraging news!

[Sultana]

3. Yay!

Girl Power

[Wizard777]

4. What political party were they with?

In Kuwait political parties are illegal in practice. But there is no formal written law making it illegal, However religious groups tend to function as ipso facto political parties. Kuwait appears to forming what I can only call a Saddam Hussein style middle eastern democracy. Before our invasion Iraq was was the closest thing to a western culture in the middle east. Women had rights and all that.

[ensho]

5. wonderful! wishing the women well and much success

and hugs

[Turborama]

6. Kuwait elects first women MPs

Source: Al Jazeera English

Kuwaitis have voted for change in the country's second election in a year by electing its first four women to parliament, which has been male-dominated for almost half a century.

The vote on Saturday was the third in just under three years after Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah dissolved the outgoing parliament in March following a standoff between MPs and the government. Kuwaitis voted 21 new members into the 50-seat parliament and reduced Sunni Muslim groups to a minority as the country grappled with political turmoil that has frozen the country's economy.

Massuma al-Mubarak, one of the four women elected, was first by a large margin among the 10 top positions elected to the parliament from her district. She also became the country's first female cabinet minister.

'Female revolution'

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra in Kuwait said: "This is definitely seen by many people as a female revolution here in Kuwait ... really a historic day. There is a new mindset here in Kuwait ... there is a wind of change in this country and it's definitely going to reverberate across the gulf region."

Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/05/20095171338473416.html

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Edited to add this report of the story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU1B6xrZzi

[Muttocracy]

7. Wow! Am I remembering right that during Gulf War 1

women there didn't even vote?

[Posteritatis]

8. They received political rights in '05 (nt)

[Muttocracy]

9. Thanks - that was a major thing that pissed me off about that war

that we were propping up such an undemocratic government. Glad to hear some things have changed.

[No Elephants]

10. All four women received doctoral degrees in the US. I hope someone invites them here to

celebrate and acknowledge this milestone--rounds of the TV talking heads show, dinner at the SH, visit to Congress, the whole nine yards. And, while there are no officially recognized political parties, the artcle describes three as liberal and one as independent, so this is a double victory, one for women and one against the Islamic neo theos.

Sistahs!

From the OP:


"The poor results for fundamentalist Muslims, he said, represented a rejection of their efforts to push for social restrictions. They have succeeded in banning coeducation at universities and clamping down on public entertainment.

Those politicians won 16 seats on Saturday, down from the 24 seats they held in the previous house. While Islamists from the country's Shiite minority kept their five seats, Sunni religious groups lost eight seats in a sizable rejection by voters.

Meanwhile, liberal politicians who call for economic reform, more openness to the West and more freedoms gained one seat for a total of five.

Kuwait has no officially recognized parties. Candidates either belong to political groups, run independently or represent their tribes."