A step towards gender equality

Local elections were held in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on December 12, with women participating for the first time. Formally, women were granted the right to vote by King Abdullah back in 2011, and these are the first local elections to be held since then. Of the nearly 7,000 candidates, 979 were women. Following the vote, 20 women candidates were elected to municipal authorities. As late as 10 years ago, nobody at all enjoyed the right to vote in the kingdom. Given that the state religion in Saudi Arabia is Sunni Islam, women and men voted separately at separate precincts.