YEMEN: Kuwaiti Elections and Yemeni Women Quota System

The first time Kuwaiti women ventuered into parlimentarian elections as candidates, they won four seats hands down. Yemeni women have been participating in all sorts of elections as candidates and the number of successful candidates in next to none.

Where did we go wrong?

Just in 2005 did Kuwait women gain the right to vote and run for office. A freedom house report on women's rights in the Middle East says Kuwaiti women have the second highest degree of freedom in the Gulf Arab states, just behind Bahrain. In addition to greater political rights for women, Kuwait also has the region's highest percentage of women in the workplace.

There is no quota system in Kuwait, nothing of the 30 or even 15 percent Yemeni women are demanding and politicians are dangling in front women's movements like a carrot on a stick. Yet in less than five years since they gained the right to vote and run in elections, Kuwaiti women have claimed eight percent of seats in parliament. In contrast, Yemeni women don't even hold 0.35 percent of seats in parliament after decades of political participation.

In the previous Kuwaiti parliamentary elections in 2006, up to 27 out of 249 candidates were women. Under the constitution, the emir shares legislative power with the 50-member National Assembly, which is elected to a four-year term by a limited popular vote involving only about 15 percent of the country's 900,000 citizens.

Most of the political women of Kuwait belong to a strong political party or are independent candidates who have a long history of public activities and are recognized for who they are by the state.

We in Yemen have both. We have strong women in strong political parties and we have active women with an admirable history of public service. Why do Yemeni women not win in elections? The answer to this is that they lack support from their parties or the country's male dominant public sphere altogether. The majority of Yemeni men simply don't respect women's rights and ability to be a public figure and to make decisions to represent the people. That is why Yemeni women think that they have to seek men's approval to participate, even if it means demanding a new law like the quota system.

We keep singing the song of the Queen Sheba and Queen Arwa in our history saying that Yemeni women have long taken their rights as leaders. But the truth is that Queen Sheba and Queen Arwa are the accomplishments of their time and not ours.

I am happy for the Kuwaiti women and wish them the best of luck. Maybe we ought to learn from their experience and seek their support.