Kuwaiti women cast votes for the first time

KUWAIT CITY:  Kuwaiti women voted for the first time on Thursday in parliamentary elections in the oil-rich Gulf state after a heated campaign focused on electoral reform and corruption.   

Twenty-eight women were among 249 candidates running for the 50-seat legislative body, according to an interior ministry list. 

Dozens of women voters, who represent 57 per cent of the eligible electorate, started queuing in front of their designated polling stations from early in the morning.   

Outside Nafissa bint al-Hassan school, in Sabah al-Salem tribal district -- dubbed the "mother of all districts" as the biggest in the number of eligible voters, some 50 women clad in abaya robes lined up under a blazing sun.   

Zahra Ramadan Benbehani, 54, who arrived in a wheelchair pushed by her daughter, was the first woman to cast her ballot at the school.   

Despite winning full political rights a year ago, some female candidates said they faced intimidation during the campaign. One of them said she had even received death threats which forced her to withdraw her candidacy.   

The election is being held against the backdrop of a political crisis between the government and parliament that led Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah to dissolve the chamber on May 21.   

It was the fourth dissolution since 1976.  The elections followed the fiercest campaign in 44 years of Kuwaiti parliamentary democracy, as the opposition bids to boost its reformist agenda, which includes slashing the number of constituencies as a way to eradicate corruption.   

Opposition candidates charged during the campaign that vote-buying by their pro-government rivals was rife.  The electorate was voting at 94 polling stations in public schools, 47 each for men and women who vote separately under the election law. Of the total of 341 voting booths, 182 were reserved for women.   

Polling opened at 8:00 am (0500 GMT) and was due to close 12 hours later, with the first results expected by midnight (2100 GMT), as votes are still counted manually.   

The justice ministry, which supervises the election, appointed 700 male judges to conduct the polls, as Kuwait has no female judges. They were to be assisted by hundreds of male and female interior ministry personnel.   

The government has allowed judges to assign women assistants to confirm the identities of female voters who wear veils and refuse to show their faces to men, in line with strict religious practice and tradition.   

Forty-six outgoing MPs, including 28 of 29 opposition MPs, are hoping for re-election, in addition to 12 former members who served in previous assemblies.   

Between 60 and 70 opposition candidates, comprising Shiite and Sunni Islamists, liberals, nationalists and independents, are standing in a loose alliance that is pressing for reforms, particularly of the electoral system.   

Analysts have predicted that the opposition, which held 29 seats in the dissolved parliament, could win up to 35 seats.   The opposition needs 33 seats to claim an absolute majority in the chamber, because 15 of the 16 cabinet ministers are ex-officio members who have the right to vote despite being unelected.   

Sunni Islamists, who held 14 seats in the dissolved house, are looking to increase their number by two more seats, while Shiite Islamists are expected to maintain their four seats. 

Pro-government candidates, mostly tribal figures, are expected to secure around 15 seats, down from 19. Outgoing speaker Jassem al-Khorafi also looks set to retain his seat.   

Slightly more than 340,000 people are eligible to vote in a country with a native population of one million. Women voters outnumber their male counterparts with 195,000, against 145,000 male voters.   

Parliament in OPEC-member Kuwait sits for a four-year term. It has legislative and monitoring powers and can vote ministers out of office.