Asharq al-Awsat reports that two women won in the first election in Saudi Arabia in which women were allowed to run as candidates:
Two Saudi businesswomen swept to an unprecedented victory in elections to the board of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the first polls in which women stood as candidates in the conservative Muslim kingdom. "I'm happy, but I'm still under shock," Lama al-Suleiman, one of the two winners, told AFP, summing up the feelings of many election activists and watchers who had expected one woman at best to be voted into office. "It's a big leap for Saudi women, an answer to what people want," said Suleiman, a 39-year-old mother of four. Suleiman and fellow female winner Nashwa Taher ran on a list of heavyweight business people and industrialists which clinched the 12 board seats up for grabs, according to results released early Wednesday. With only 100 women among the some 3,880 chamber members who cast ballots, the pair's victory was effectively handed by men. "We should give them (women) a chance because they have little representation in society," one male voter said Tuesday, adding he had voted for four women.May this be a good trend for the future, inshallah.