Covered from head-to-toe and driven by male guardians, Saudi women voted on Saturday for the first time, in a tentative step towards easing sex discrimination in the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom.
In another first, women were allowed to stand as candidates in the polls for municipal councils, the country’s only elected public chambers.
“Now, women have a voice,” Awatef Marzooq said after casting her ballot for the first time at a school in Riyadh. “I cried. This is something that we only used to see on television taking place in other countries.”
Despite the presence of female contenders on the ballot sheet for the first time, Marzooq said she had picked a male candidate because of his ideas including more nurseries.
Outside one centre in Riyadh for women, a succession of cars driven by men brought female voters dressed in black robes. Most of the women asked the media not to take their photograph before they were whisked away.