Kuwait: women's suffrage a possibility

Off Our Backs, Jul/Aug 2004 by Christian, Sena, Stachowski, Roxanne, Ferden, Sara, Walter, Shoshana

Kuwait's Council of Ministers approved a bill in May giving women the right to vote and to run for parliamentary election. The full 50-member Parliament still must approve the draft, which many Kuwaitis believe unlikely, as several parliament members have vowed to defeat the bill.

One parliamentarian said, "The woman has no political rights in Islam. She has taken the right as a woman and a household for bringing up future generations."

Kuwaiti women have been fighting for the right to vote for over 40 years. The most recent opportunity came in 1999, when Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah issued a decree granting women suffrage. The decree was defeated by a vote of 32 to 30 by a group of Islamists and conservative Parliament members.

Kuwait's parliament has a Sunni majority that rejects the political rights of women in "general authority." Kuwait Shiites, on the other hand, claim to support women's rights.

After the 1990 Iraqi invasion, Kuwait's parliament promised to increase freedoms for women; however, the country's democratic goals will remain out of reach as long as women continue to be discriminated against and deprived of voting rights.

With the current voting system only about fifteen percent of the population are actually eligible to vote. Only male citizens who resided in Kuwait prior to 1920, their male descendents and the descendants of naturalized citizens may vote. Citizens who were naturalized fewer than 20 years earlier are prohibited from voting and may not run for national office. To vote, citizens must be at least 21 years old.

-info from www.feminist.org