KUWAIT: Kuwait's cabinet approved a draft law yesterday allowing women to vote and run in parliamentary polls, moving them a step closer to full political rights they have sought for decades in the conservative Gulf Arab state.
The draft needs parliament's approval to pass into law. A decree issued by Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah giving women the vote was narrowly defeated in the 50-man house in 1999 by an alliance of Islamist and conservative tribal MPs.
Kuwaiti women have been fighting to win the vote for more than 40 years, only to be blocked by determined Islamists and male politicians.
"The council [of ministers] decided to approve the draft law and transfer it to the Emir, God protect him, in order to transfer it to the National Assembly," a cabinet statement said.
OPEC member Kuwait's current parliament was elected in July by an elite group of males who must be 21 years or older and not recently naturalised or members of the armed forces.
The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the emir's brother, has made clear it is committed to political and economic reforms in Kuwait, which has one-tenth of the world's oil reserves.
A leading women's rights activist, Dr Fatima al-Abdali, welcomed the news, adding that the issue of refusing women the vote was "sabotaging Kuwait's image internationally".