Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud gave the kingdom's women the right to participate in local elections and to become members of the country's top advisory body, a sign that the elderly monarch hasn't abandoned his program of cautious social reform despite political upheavals elsewhere in the Middle East.
In a short speech that was broadcast on Saudi television on Sunday, King Abdullah said the decision to give a bigger political say to women was taken after consulting with the kingdom's top religious clerics, who have previously knocked back government initiatives to move forward on social issues involving women.
Though the changes are relatively modest, analysts said they signal that the king intends to move ahead with the cautious social reforms he has championed since acceding to the throne in 2005.
Saudi women remain veiled and segregated and are forbidden to drive or to obtain their own identity cards. Women need written permission from a male relative in order to travel abroad.
In 2009, the king opened the first co-educational university in the kingdom and appointed the kingdom's first female deputy minister.
However, since the recent wave of Arab unrest began, the king has seemed to back off from the reform process, barring political protests, keeping a lid on women's rights and criticizing pro-democracy demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt.
The clergy, meanwhile, has stood behind the ruling family by issuing fatwas, or religious edicts, barring political protests.
Some Saudi women welcomed Sunday's reforms. "This is historic brave decision.…King Abdullah gave women back their dignity which was killed decades ago," said Manal al-Sharif, a female computer technician who was detained in May for posting a video on YouTube of herself driving.
But others pointed to the limited nature of the reforms and the fact they don't take effect for several years. Saudi women will be able to vote and stand as candidates in municipal elections scheduled for 2015 but not in the current municipal polls to be held Thursday. They won't be appointed to the 150-member Shura Council, the top advisory body, until its current term ends in 2013.
And some noted that the powers of the all-male advisory council are already limited.
"I'm surprised that people are saying the king allowed women to take part in the political life. Did he allow men to start with?" Saudi blogger Abdul Majd Al Buluwi wrote on Twitter. "The political life [in the kingdom] is closed and has not been opened," he added.
In the summer, authorities arrested some women who broke the no-driving rule in a popular campaign.
Several Saudi women, inspired by revolutions in the Middle East, got behind the wheel in June to challenge restrictions against female drivers in the ultraconservative kingdom.
The show of civil disobedience, against one of the many restrictions imposed on Saudi women, provided a test for authorities in Saudi Arabia since the Arab Spring took hold across the region this year.
It was first significant campaign for women after 1991, when Saudi women, encouraged by the sight of female American GIs driving, some 47 Saudi women drove in a convoy of 15 cars in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The campaign quickly fizzled after the women were banned from traveling, lost their jobs and were ostracized by their families and acquaintances.
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