Women's rights in the Middle East received a boost yesterday when Kuwait's council of ministers approved a bill giving them the right to vote and stand for parliament.
The draft legislation has still to go before parliament, which in 1999 narrowly voted, by 32 to 30, against giving women the vote.
Women's campaigners expressed confidence yesterday that they will win this time round. "We will win, not with a landslide, but with enough votes," Rola Dashti, one of the campaign leaders who four years ago failed in an attempt to secure the vote through court action.
Legislators opposed to the change met yesterday to discuss their strategy.
If women in Kuwait succeed this time, it could have a knock-on effect on other parts of the Middle East, not least neighbouring Saudi Arabia where women are not even allowed to undertake such basic activities as driving, although there have been hints that they may be able to vote in municipal elections in Ocotber.
The Kuwaiti decision chimes with a US-led campaign to encourage the adoption of western-style democracy in the Middle East. George Bush's administration argues that the Middle East will remain a source of instability until significant political and economic reforms take place and has been promoting what it refers to as the Greater Middle East Initiative. Kuwait is one of the US's closest allies in the Middle East.
The council of ministers said the draft law will amend 1962 legislation on parliamentary elections in order to "widen popular participation in parliaments". At present, only males over 21 can vote.
The ministers passed the draft to the emir, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who has publicly supported reform in the past, to forward to parliament.
The ministers said the amendment would "allow the Kuwaiti woman to practise her right in electing and running a candidate for the national assembly".
They added the move was "in appreciation of the vital role that Kuwaiti women play in building and developing Kuwaiti society, and their big sacrifices in the face of all the challenges the country has had throughout its history".
Kuwait is a semi-autocratic society, in which the emir and his extended family basically run the country: his brother, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, is prime minister.
In spite of this, the parliament provides a forum for divergent voices and has voted down legislation passed to it by the emir and his ministers.
In 1999, hundreds of men cheered in the streets when it was announced that parliament had rejected a bill to give women the vote, contrasting with dismay expressed by about 120 women campaigners in the public gallery of the parliament.
Some clerics who are also legislators supported the bill, but others, mainly Sunni Muslims, opposed it.
The political debate in Kuwait has been dominated for the last fortnight by a decision by the government to licence a concert by the stars of a popular reality television show, Star Academy, which is produced in Lebanon. The concert has been criticised by clerics in the parliament, who are putting pressure on the information minister, Mohammed Abdul-Hassan.
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Ms Dashti raised suspicion that the surprise decision to introduce draft legislation for women might be linked to the government's seeking a way out of its political embarrassment over the concert. "I hope it is not going to be 'We withdraw the women's rights proposal if you back out on grilling the minister'," she told the Associated Press.
Women in Kuwait, who enjoy more freedom than women in many other parts of the region and occupy senior positions within government departments and in the private sector, have been campaigning for the vote for four decades.
Once at the forefront of women's rights in the region, they have been overtaken in recent years by Bahrain and Qatar, which have both granted women voting rights.
Mr Bush's call to Arab countries to reform has created unease within the Middle East, with many leaders dismissing his proposals as patronising and as outside interference.
At a conference in Kuwait organised by the parliament to discuss reform in the Middle East, the Kuwaiti prime minister said on Saturday that political reform could only be achieved from within, with the cooperation of the countries involved, and not from outside.
Anticipating yesterday's announcement, he may have been trying to persuade Kuwaitis and other Arabs that the draft legislation on women is not connected with Mr Bush's campaign.
