What If Saudi Arabia Threw an Election for Women and Nobody Came?
The brave women spearheading female suffrage in the kingdom are worried that the forthcoming vote might not be the revolution they had hoped for.
BY DECEMBER 9, 2015
RIYADH & JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA — The announcement lasted a mere five minutes, but it was enough to make Noura Al Souwayan’s commute home on Sept. 25, 2011, the most memorable moment in a lifetime of campaigning for women’s rights. That evening, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah gave a brief address promising to grant women the right to vote in the kingdom’s only elections, for local municipal councils.
