Bahrain Opens Polls to Women for First Time

Bahrainis turned out to vote Thursday in the country’s first referendum in 30 years, with women exercising their right to vote in the conservative Gulf Arab state for the first time.

In villages where a violent Shiite Muslim campaign for change once brewed, women talked excitedly outside polling places about how the reforms they’ve been asked to vote on would benefit their tiny nation.

The referendum asks for a “yes” or “no” vote on a national charter in which the monarch pledges to delegate more power to the people, including an elected parliament. Bahrain is ruled by a royal family.

“A parliament will open the doors to democracy. It will give the people a chance to participate in building their country,” Ali Jassem Hassan, 63, said after voting in the Shiite village of Tashan, six miles north of the capital, Manama.

The charter also would declare all Bahrainis equal regardless of sect or religion, allow men and women to vote and run for office, make the judiciary independent, and set up a body to investigate complaints from the public.

The measures are aimed at addressing the grievances of a Muslim Shiite majority. Bahrain’s ruling family is from Islam’s mainstream Sunni sect; Shiites are a slight majority on the island but wield little political power.