Voting registration for the December elections starts today and on August 30, they will even be allowed to register as candidates.
This is happening four years after the now deceased King Abdullah announced that women will be
granted equal voting rights and the right to run for office in the conservative Muslim country. Later in 2013, he issued a royal decree stating that the Consultative Council, a royally appointed body that advises the King, be at least 20 per cent women.
Women will be allowed to vote and stand in the elections this December, but the people only choose half of the people on local councils. The other half are chosen by the monarch. According to local media, 70 women are looking to run as candidates, while another 80 have registered as campaign managers.
But despite being a step in the right direction, Saudi Arabian women still have very few rights because of the guardianship system that exists.
Women are not allowed to obtain a passport, marry, travel or access higher education without approval from a male guardian. This can be a husband or a relative.
Women are also forbidden to wear clothes that show off their beauty or make-up, and are required to limit the time they spend with men they are not related to.
Saudi Arabia sent female athletes to the London Olympic Games for the first time in 2012 but hard-line clerics denounced them as 'prostitutes.
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