Thirty-two males and seven female candidates were contesting the club’s elections.

The dispute started when Suad Al-Manee joined the panel desk alongside Deputy Minister of Culture for Cultural Affairs and head of supervising committee for Baha Cultural Club elections Naser Al-Hujailan, and director general of cultural clubs Abdullah Al-Kinani and the governorate representative Mohammad Al-Manee.

The disruption came when a number of attendees refused to be represented by a woman on the supervising panel.

The protesters threatened to boycott the elections and file a complaint to the authorities.

Meanwhile, 27 male and 7 female attendees were handed electronic voting devices and they cast their votes.  Upon the committee's insistence on finishing the voting, 17 members left the hall and headed to the governor's office.

The voting procedure was completed with Suad Al-Manee still in her seat. She gave a speech later.

Al-Hujailan announced the results with eight men and two women winning the board elections. He stressed that the behavior of some of the participants reflects their wrong perception of others' motives.

“I was shocked at what happened, as this was the first time I faced such a situation,” said Suad Al-Manee.

The head of the Baha Cultural Club, Hasan Al-Zahrani, expressed his and his colleagues' disappointment at the disruption, clarifying that they have previously organized many regional and local cultural activities where women had a distinguished role.

“We were never faced with objections neither from the social, cultural or even the official side,” said Al-Zahrani.