Saudi King Abdullah on Sunday granted women the right to vote and run in municipal elections, in a historic first for the ultra-conservative country, where women are subjected to many restrictions.
The monarch made the unexpected announcement that he had issued a decree to enfranchise women in a speech to the Shura Council broadcast live on state TV.
“Starting with the next term, women will have the right to run in municipal elections and to choose candidates, according to Islamic principles,” Abdullah said.
Women’s rights activists have long fought for the right to vote in the Gulf kingdom, which applies a strict version of Sunni Islam and bans women from driving or traveling without the consent of a male guardian.
Manal al-Sharif, the 32-year-old icon of a campaign in which a group of defiant Saudi women got behind the steering wheels of their cars in a protest against the driving ban, said the king’s decision was “a historic and courageous one.”
“The king is a reformist,” she said of the monarch, whose country was spared a wave of protests rocking the region by which autocratic regimes in Tunisia and Egypt were toppled.
The king’s decision means that women will be able to take part in the elections that are to be held in four years, as the next vote is due to take place on Thursday and nominations are already closed.
In addition to participating in the only public polls in the country, women would have the right to join the all-appointed Shura Council, he said in the address opening the assembly’s new term.
More than 5,000 men will compete in Thursday’s municipal elections, only the second in Saudi Arabia’s history, to fill half the seats in the kingdom’s 285 municipal councils. The other half are appointed by the government.
The first elections were held in 2005, but the government extended the existing council’s term for two years.
Abdullah said his decision came because “we refuse marginalizing women’s role in the Saudi society in all fields” and followed “consultations with several scholars.”
He did not mention anything about women’s right to drive in the kingdom, where they must hire male chauffeurs, or depend on the goodwill of relatives if they do not have the means.
However, he said that “balanced modernization which agrees with our Islamic values is a necessary demand in an epoch where there is no place for those who are hesitant” in moving forward.
Saudi Arabia has seen many changes since Abdullah became king in 2005.
Norah al-Fayez, who was named to the post of deputy education minister for women’s education in 2009, was the first woman ever named to a ministerial post in the country.
More than 60 intellectuals and activists had called in May for a boycott of this month’s 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.
The Shura Council had recommended allowing women to vote in the next local polls, officials have said.
Suheila Zine el-Abidine, an activist from Saudi’s National Human Rights Association, paid tribute to the king for allowing women to vote.
“We are very happy with his decision today [Sunday],” she said, adding that “by affirming women’s political rights in a royal decree, he has removed all questions raised around this matter.”
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