MUSCAT, 4 October 2003 — With women making up more than a third of registered voters, Omani women hope today’s election to the Omani Shoura Council will boost their position in the advisory council, but some fear tribal attitudes, and in some cases vote-buying, will stymie their progress.
“With military and security personnel barred from taking part in the vote, the actual figure (of eligible voters) is far less than the 800,000 mentioned in a Ministry of National Economy report,” Interior Minister Saud ibn Ibrahim Al-Busaidi was quoted in yesterday’s local press as saying.
Tribal perceptions of public life as a male preserve, rather than the limited powers of the Majlis, are cited by many in this country to explain why only 15 women are in the run against 491 men in the country’s first full ballot, down from 21 women candidates three years ago. But the disclosure that 95,000 of the 262,000 Omanis who have registered to vote are women has raised expectations of a strong showing by women candidates that would increase their share in the 83-strong council from the current two seats — a figure that has remained unchanged since they joined the body in 1994.
The victory would be particularly sweet if a woman manages for the first time to clinch a seat outside the capital Muscat.
“My candidacy was a challenge from the start, given that no woman was ever elected outside Muscat,” said Rafia Salman Al-Talii, who is running against seven men in the district of Al-Kabil in the Sharqiya region, some 200 kilometers southeast of the capital.
Talii, an eloquent 32-year-old journalist, said she was easily the most qualified of the candidates in her district and “the only one with a clear platform,” centering on providing education opportunities for youths and “Omanizing” jobs.
“A vote for me would be a vote for education and women’s advancement. But let’s face it: Tribal and kinship relations are likely to affect voting in this area. Moreover, some candidates are offering financial enticements,” she told AFP. Zahra Al-Abri, who narrowly lost in a rural area in the last polls in 2000 — when only one in four Omanis was entitled to vote — is trying this time round in the Bausher district of Muscat, but she too blamed tribalism for the small number of female candidates.
“When there is just one seat up for grabs in a constituency, people say ‘how would we give it to a woman? It should go to a man.’ That’s why there are fewer women in the race,” said Abri, 37.
