KUWAIT CITY, 13 June 2005 — The Kuwaiti government has appointed its first female Cabinet minister, a month after lawmakers granted women the right to vote and run for office.
Political science teacher Massouma Al-Mubarak, a women’s rights activist and columnist, was given the planning and administrative development portfolios, Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah was quoted as saying.
“I’m happy,” al-Mubarak, 54, said. “This honor is not bestowed on my person but on every woman who fought to prove that Kuwaiti women are capable.”
Al-Mubarak’s appointment needs to be approved by Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah and issued in a decree. That move is procedural; the emir has been a strong proponent of women’s rights.
Al-Mubarak said she needed time to study the plans at the ministry before she speaks of her own plans.
The two portfolios she is taking were previously held by Sheikh Ahmed Abdullah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, who is also the communications minister.
Al-Mubarak has a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Denver, Colorado. She has taught political science at Kuwait University since 1982 and writes a daily column for Al-Anba newspaper.
Her appointment became possible last month, when Parliament passed a law allowing women to vote and run for public office for the first time in the history of the country.
According to the 1962 constitution, Cabinet members should be eligible to vote in parliamentary elections.
When Al-Mubarak takes up her post, she — like other Cabinet ministers — will be able to vote in the legislature.
The move comes on the heels of a landmark decision last week to appoint two women to Kuwait’s 16-member Municipal Council, a body whose functions are limited to monitoring civic planning, some public services and restaurants, roads and civil construction.
The two women are Sheikha Fatima Nasser Al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family and sister of former Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Nasser Al-Sabah, and Fawziya Al-Bahar, both engineers.
Kuwaiti women have reached high positions in oil, education and the diplomatic corps, but had demanded political rights, which were opposed by conservative and tribal lawmakers.
The Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar and Oman all had their first elections in recent years and have allowed women to cast ballots.
