JEDDAH, 25 October 2005 — Seven businesswomen running in the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry board of directors election have formed their own alliance to support their bid in the first ever elections in the Kingdom open for women. Olfat Qabani, Amani Abdul Wasea, Hanan Madani, Batool Jamjoom, Buthaina Moumina, Dunia Yunis and Salwa Ridwan have formed Al-Awa’el (the Primaries) group. They will hold a press conference today to present their goals, agenda and the reason for forming an all-women group rather than joining one of the existing groups.
“We felt that we have common goals and concerns that we want to make sure are heard at the chambers,” said Salwa Ridwan to Arab News. “As the first women’s group, we are more aware of businesswomen’s needs and what the hurdles they face in their work. Therefore our agenda includes facilitating and developing small businesses and establishing better relationships with banks for businesswomen, among others,” she added.
Eighteen businesswomen nominated themselves for the JCCI board elections to be held on Nov. 27 and 28 for women voters. Men vote on Nov. 29 and 30 but women can vote on those days too through a wakeel (male agent).
The Ministry of Commerce issued a decision allowing women to run in the elections after several businesswomen objected to being denied that right as chamber members. This marks the first participation of Saudi women as candidates in an election in the country. The supervising committee formed by the ministry chose three businesswomen as observers of the women’s election process.
Many businesswomen took the opportunity to play an active part in their chamber. They will be competing with 58 male candidates. All the candidates registered themselves either in the commerce or industrialist categories. The 12 seats open for election are divided equally between the two categories. Olfat Qabani is the only woman in the industrialist category which has 19 candidates.
In the past week, two businesswomen, Alia Banaja and Samira Bitar, withdrew their nominations for personal or business reasons. Two others, Lama Al-Sulaiman and Nashwa Taher, joined the Lijeddah (For Jeddah) group headed by Mohammed Jameel.
The Small Establishments group headed by Dr. Abdullah Dahlan has a vacant seat for who ever the group considers suitable for them. “When we formed the group, it was before the decision was made to allow women to run, and we had already the full twelve members allowed per group,” said Mazin Madani. “One of our members withdrew from the group and became independent, so we have a vacant seat and we approached three women to join us but none of them nominated herself,” he said. They are not against including a woman in the group but she has to compliment the group and agree with its goals.
