A Saudi woman won a seat on Mecca\u2019s municipal council in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia\u2019s first-ever elections open to female voters and candidates, the country\u2019s election commission announced Sunday.<\/p>\n
Salma bint Hizab al-Oteibi was elected to the council of Madrakah, a region in the holy city of Mecca, the official SPA news agency reported, citing election commission president Osama al-Bar.<\/p>\n
She was running against seven men and two women, he added.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with some of the world\u2019s tightest restrictions on women, including a ban on driving.<\/p>\n
It was the last country to allow only men to vote, and polling stations were segregated during Saturday\u2019s vote.<\/p>\n
Among the 6,440 candidates were more than 900 women, who overcame a number of obstacles to participate in the landmark poll.<\/p>\n
Female candidates could not directly meet any male voters during their campaigns.<\/p>\n
Female voters said registration was hindered by factors including bureaucratic obstacles and a lack of transport.<\/p>\n
As a result, women accounted for less than 10 percent of registered voters and few female candidates were expected to be elected.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Saudi woman won a seat on Mecca\u2019s municipal council in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia\u2019s first-ever elections open to female voters and candidates, the country\u2019s election commission announced Sunday. Salma bint Hizab al-Oteibi was elected to the council of Madrakah, a region in the holy city of Mecca, the official SPA news agency reported, citing election […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":174088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-174087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=174087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/174088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=174087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=174087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=174087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}