Rola Dashti, one of the four women elected to Parliament

This past Saturday, four women won seats in the Kuwaiti parliament--the first time ever women have been represented in the parliament. Women in Kuwait were only given the right to vote and run for office in 20062005, so this is a huge step forward in a short amount of time.

From CNN:

'The Kuwaiti women have been able to notch up this great victory at a crucial time and set a precedent in the history of Arabian Gulf parliaments,' Mohammad Al-Feili, a constitutional law professor at Kuwait University, told the official Kuwait News Agency.

Two-hundred-and-ten candidates ran for 50 seats in the general election; 16 were women.

Al-Awadhi said the elections proved Kuwaitis want political change.

'Yes, they do, absolutely,' she said. 'Yes, I mean, this is my second time running for election. I ran last time ... and yes, people were talking about change. But this time, I realized that people are determined -- that they want to achieve change, they want to see change happen.'

UPDATE: On a related note, Lithuania just elected it's first female president, Dalia Grybauskaite.

3 Comments

May 18, 2009 2:08 PM

[0+]  Blinutne said:

Great news here, and, further, Lithuania has elected Dalia Grybauskaite its first female president. I'm not sure if that was posted elsewhere, but I thought it was equally beneficent.

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May 18, 2009 2:08 PM

[0+]  Mollie said:

Just read about this. Awesome.
"Women in Kuwait were only given the right to vote and run for office in 2006, so this is a huge step forward in a short amount of time."
I believe it was 2005, actually.

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May 18, 2009 2:33 PM

[0+]  Miriam said:

Thanks for the addition and correction, I updated the post!

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