KUWAIT CITY - The first woman ever to contest elections in the conservative Gulf state of Kuwait has launched her campaign by breaking a 44-year-old taboo in bringing male and female voters together.| Good for her. |
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 15 kilometers (10 miles) southeast of Kuwait City. The other woman candidate is Khaleda Al Khader, a physician and mother of eight. Both women belong to the minority Shiite Muslim community who make up about 30 percent of the native population but are just under half the number of voters in the constituency.
Wearing the hijab, the Muslim headcover, Bushehri, 33, called on the audience to fight sectarianism and tribalism and pledged to combat red tape and corruption, allegedly rampant in the civic body. Bushehri, who is married with two daughters, holds a masters in chemical engineering and is working on her doctorate. She heads the food examination department at the municipality.
| More qualified than Hilliary to be U.S. Senator. |