SAUDI voters elected 20 women in local councils’ election in which women for the first time in the Kingdom’s history were allowed to vote and also to become candidate to get elected. It is true that the elected candidates represent just one per cent of the roughly 2,100 municipal council seats up for grabs but the limited gains are even seen by observers at home and abroad as a step forward for women who were completely shut out previously from public life. The election has opened way to wider democratic reforms in the highly religious and conservative society at a time when the wind for change is hitting hard the region and the Saudi monarchy is also under strong pressure to open the government to wider public participation. Since opening of council elections to people, two previous rounds of voting were however limited to men only in 2005 and 2011. But this time women not only got the right to vote but also were elected showing it as a clear step of the Saudi government to integrate women into mainstream politics. The king is scheduled to nominate over thousand additional representatives on the local councils and as media reports said large number of women is also expected to be picked up to ensure a reasonable presence of women in local bodies. Another epoch-making decision to allow the construction of the first ever cinema hall in the Kingdom coinciding the election of women to local councils has also come as symbolizing a new opening of socio-cultural outlook towards modernization. Local media reports said the cinema hall will essentially put on show Islamic and traditional values of Saudi society; but nonetheless we believe it is going to work as a bridge with western civilization. The opening up shows that the Saudi monarchy is accepting change from within and we believe that the credit squarely goes to the new King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud who has invariably realized the fact that democratic reform can only strengthen the monarchy to live with changing regional and global environment. We believe that the opening of democratic system, though in small steps, will make the people of Saudi Arabia feel integrated with the system of the Saudi government. No country can live insulating itself from what is happening outside. Islam freed women and recognised in those days that women also have their rights. There is no reason for Islam to discourage women’s participation now in public life.
