Kuwaiti women head to the polls

WaPo has the story here:

Kuwaiti women voted and competed for office in parliamentary elections on Thursday for the first time in the Gulf Arab state...

Parliament passed a law in May 2005 giving women the right to vote and stand as candidates in elections for the 50-seat National Assembly of the oil-producing country.

Officials said some 250 candidates were standing, including 28 women determined to make headway against daunting odds and beat seasoned male opponents, many of whom are former parliamentarians seeking re-election...

Women can vote and stand for election in four of the six countries in the conservative, patriarchal Gulf Arab region. They are banned in Saudi Arabia, where women's rights are limited, and there are no political polls in the UAE.

Men and women voted at different polling stations, but turnout may be as high as 78 percent in some areas.

This is a huge advance for liberalism and women's rights in an especially illiberal part of the world, one that isn't particularly friendly to either women or their rights.

There is much left to be done in Kuwait. There are no official political parties, there is no real opposition other than "a loose alliance of pro-reform ex-MPs, Islamists and liberals," and there is ongoing hostility towards women's rights ("even some women were against them having the vote") and the reform movement generally. As well, "[t]he opposition accuses some members of government of trying to turn parliament into a rubber-stamp assembly through vote-buying".

Still, progress is progress. And Kuwait certainly seems to be heading in the right direction.