Originally published 2015-09-10.
CSMonitor
Saudi women voted and ran for office for the first time in the municipal elections of 12 December 2015. Registration opened in August 2015, and the first women signed up in Mecca and Medina. The right had been promised by King Abdullah in September 2011. When the results came in, about 20 women had won seats on local councils, making them the first women elected to public office in the kingdom. Men and women voted at separate polling stations, but voters could choose candidates of either sex.
It was a real milestone, but a limited one. Here is what changed in 2015, what the elections could and could not do, and how women's rights in Saudi Arabia have developed since.
How the right to vote came about
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with no national parliament elected by the people. The only public elections are for municipal councils, which handle local matters such as services and planning. Men-only council elections were held in 2005 and 2011, with half of the seats elected and the rest appointed.
A few days before the 2011 vote, King Abdullah announced that women would be able to vote and stand as candidates in the next round. He also opened the Shura Council, the appointed body that advises the king, to women. In January 2013, 30 women were appointed to it. Abdullah died in January 2015, so the elections took place under his successor, King Salman.
Registration and the 2015 campaign
When registration opened in August 2015, local media described the first women to register in Mecca and Medina, and several told the Saudi Gazette that taking part as voters and candidates was something they had long dreamed of. Getting on the list was harder for women than for men. Voters needed a national ID card, and some women did not have one because male relatives opposed it, even though they could legally obtain one without permission. Officials also shut down a voter-education project, the Baladi initiative, citing licensing issues.
In the end about 130,000 women registered to vote, compared with about 1.35 million men. Some 978 women registered as candidates alongside nearly 6,000 men, although others were blocked from registering without clear reasons. Two well-known activists, Loujain al-Hathloul and Nassima al-Sadah, were disqualified.
Campaigning had its own rules. Female candidates could not speak directly to male voters. At men's events, they had to speak from behind a partition or have a man read out their speech. Many also said they could not afford the costs of a campaign.
The results: 20 women elected
The vote on 12 December 2015 filled two-thirds of the seats on 284 municipal councils, with the remaining third appointed. Among registered voters, turnout was far higher for women (around 82%) than for men (around 44%).
About 20 women won, out of roughly 2,100 seats contested. Salma bint Hizab al-Oteibi became the first elected woman politician in the country's history, winning a seat in Madrakah in Mecca province. Businesswoman Rasha Hefzi won a seat in Jeddah. The numbers were small, but each win showed that voters were willing to choose women.
Why critics called it a first step
Human rights groups welcomed the change while pointing out its limits. Adam Coogle of Human Rights Watch called it a meaningful step but argued that the male guardianship system had to go, because women still needed a male relative's approval to get a passport, marry, travel or enter higher education. He added: Only then will Saudi Arabia's women be able to contribute to society on an equal footing with men.
Other critics noted that municipal councils have little real power in an absolute monarchy, and saw the reform partly as a message to Western governments. Both views can be true at once. The vote did not give Saudi women equal political rights, but it ended a complete ban on women taking part in any election.
What has changed since 2015
The years after the election brought bigger changes than the vote itself:
- Driving, June 2018: the ban on women driving was lifted on 24 June 2018, and more than 120,000 women applied for licences that day.
- Guardianship, August 2019: women over 21 gained the right to get a passport, travel abroad and register marriages and divorces without a male guardian's permission.
- Activists: at the same time, several women who had campaigned for these rights, including Loujain al-Hathloul, were detained. Al-Hathloul was held for almost three years before her release in February 2021.
Saudi Arabia still sits near the bottom of international gender equality tables. The World Economic Forum's 2024 Global Gender Gap Index ranked it 126th out of 146 countries. Parts of the guardianship system also remain in place, especially around marriage.
Why the 2015 vote still matters
Seen from today, the 2015 elections were a turning point that showed the system could change. Women had not just registered but campaigned, won and taken their seats. That made later reforms easier to argue for. It also gave thousands of Saudi women direct experience of registering, campaigning and serving on public bodies, experience that later campaigners could point to.
It is also a reminder of how recent women's suffrage is in many places. Women in Switzerland only won the national vote in 1971, and some Gulf states extended voting rights to women only in the 2000s. For the women who registered in Mecca and Medina in the summer of 2015, a local council election was a small door, but one that had been closed to them all their lives.
Sources: Human Rights Watch: Saudi women registering to vote is a start (August 2015); Euronews: Saudi Arabia elects women councillors for the first time (December 2015); Wikipedia: 2015 Saudi Arabian municipal elections; Wikipedia: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia. Photo credit: CSMonitor. The story was first shared via True Activist, citing the Saudi Gazette.
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