KUWAIT: Kuwait named its first woman cabinet minister yesterday, less than a month after giving women the vote, a key plank in its democratic reforms.
Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah announced rights activist Dr Massouma al-Mubarak's appointment as planning minister and minister of state for administrative development affairs, the state news agency Kuna reported.
"Naming a Kuwaiti woman as a minister . . . is a special step we had longed to achieve," Sheikh Sabah said.
Kuwait, keeping a promise to carry out democratic reforms, made another breakthrough earlier this month when it appointed two women to its municipal council, the first women to take seats there.
Dr al-Mubarak (57), a columnist and political science professor at Kuwait University, said she was honoured to be the first woman minister in the Gulf Arab state's history.