DPA/Riyadh
Saudi female candidates running for municipal councils began yesterday campaigning in elections marking the first time women are allowed to vote and contest polls in the kingdom.
Around 865 women are among 6,140 Saudis standing in the elections due to be held on December 12, according to official figures.
Two thirds of seats in the kingdom’s 284 councils are up for grabs.
The other third of members will be appointed by the government.
Women’s participation in the polls, the third of their kind in the country, was decreed in 2011 by then king Abdullah.
The monarch, who died in January, had also ordered that 20% of members of the Shura Council be women.
Women standing for municipal councils are prohibited from holding rallies attended by men, an electoral official said yesterday.
“The female candidate can only communicate with the electorate via a TV circuit,” spokesman for the official election commission Jadeeh al-Qahtani said in a tweet.
“A spokesman for her can communicate with men on her behalf.”
Contenders from both sexes are also barred from displaying their pictures in public during the 12-day campaigning.
Aljazi al-Hussaini, a candidate for the municipal council in the town of Diriyah, on the outskirts of Riyadh, shows an electoral campaign licence issu
