JEDDAH, 30 November 2005 — The results of the elections to the board of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry were delayed as the counting had to be done manually.

At the time of going to the press, the counting was still going on after a record number of nearly 4,000 voters had taken part in the two-day elections.

When the balloting closed at 9 p.m., over 3,900 voters had cast their votes. This was almost double the number who had voted in the last elections.

A source at the JCCI said that the higher number of voters this time was due to the very good publicity given to the elections and the participation of women candidates for the first time.

“Another reason could be the high number of 71 candidates this time which is unprecedented in JCCI elections,” the source added.

He said it was unlikely that many women would win this time. However, many voters said they had voted for women candidates.

“Four of the 12 candidates I voted for are women,” Humam Attar, a company owner told AFP as he left the chamber while campaign activists jostled to hand out pamphlets of the candidates they supported under a scorching sun.

“We should encourage women even if they have less qualifications (than male counterparts). We should give them a chance because they have little representation in society,” he said.

Some other businessmen said they had picked female candidates to encourage women’s participation in public life or because they were running on a list they back.

Banker Mazen Al-Tamimi, however, stressed he had voted for three female hopefuls he believes are qualified to sit on the board.

“They are able women, otherwise I wouldn’t have voted for them,” he said. “I do believe in women being in public and official life ... I hope a woman will win” one of the 12 seats up for grabs.

The polls, which began Saturday, are the first in which businesswomen are running for office although they were previously entitled to vote for the board.

Mustafa Sabri, legal adviser of the Jeddah chamber, said the chamber was also the only institution across Saudi Arabia in which two women were elected on a nine-member workers’ committee following a decision by the labor minister last year to allow workers to elect the union-like bodies.

Seventeen women are among 71 candidates for the chamber board.

Female members of the chamber voted on the first two days of the polls, while businessmen began voting on Monday.

Turnout was heavy among male voters, unlike the poor participation of businesswomen: Only 100 out of some 1,400 eligible women cast ballots, according to activists.

But Nadia Baeshen, who heads a center that assists businesswomen, said another 140 women who turned up could not cast ballots for procedural reasons, and the turnout “was good considering that this is the first time” women are standing as candidates.

Some 21,000 members of the Jeddah chamber, or about half the total membership, were eligible to take part in the election. Trade and Industry Minister Hashem Yamani is to appoint an additional six members.

The polls were rescheduled from late September by Yamani specifically to enable women to stand after an elections committee linked to his ministry had rejected the candidacies of seven women.

— With input from agencies