Two Saudi women win seats after landmark elections
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Two women have won seats on a Jiddah chamber of commerce, the first to win any elected position in Saudi Arabia, where women remain largely barred from political life, officials said Wednesday.
Lama al-Sulaiman and Nashwa Taher were elected to the Jiddah Trade and Industry Chamber, officials at the chamber said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The chamber's elections on Saturday and Sunday were the first polls in Saudi Arabia in which women could either vote or stand. In the kingdom's first nationwide municipal elections early this year, women were neither allowed to vote nor stand as candidates. Electoral officials said women might be allowed to vote in the 2009 municipal polls.