Jenan Bushehri

KUWAIT CITY: The first woman ever to contest elections in the state of Kuwait has launched her campaign by breaking a 44-year-old taboo in bringing male and female voters together.

Hundreds of men and women attended the landmark event late on Tuesday which was held according to Kuwaiti tradition in a huge tent where they listened to Jenan Bushehri who is vying to win a seat on the municipal council.

It was the first time women have attended an election gathering in Kuwait since polls were held for the first time in this oil-rich emirate in 1962, and the first campaign event ever to be addressed by a woman.

Men and women were however made to sit slightly apart from each other although under the same tent. “I promise I will not disappoint you if you elect me,” Bushehri said in her address.

Kuwaiti women were granted full political rights in a historic vote in parliament in only May 2005. The government subsequently appointed two women members in the municipal council and named the first woman minister.

Bushehri is being challenged by 11 candidates, including another woman, in the April 4 by-election for the only seat up for grabs in the district of Salmiya, some 15km southeast of Kuwait City.

The seat fell vacant after municipal council chairman Abdullah Al Muhailbi was appointed municipality and environment minister in the new Kuwaiti cabinet formed last month. The other woman candidate is Khaleda Al Khader, a physician and mother of eight.

Both women belong to the minority Shi’ite Muslim community who make up about 30 per cent of the native population but are just under half the number of voters in the constituency. The number of voters in the district was increased by almost 130 per cent to 28,000 after women were allowed to vote.