Reformists victorious in Kuwait elections

[Scriptor Ignotus]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060630/ap_on_re_mi_ea/kuwait_election

KUWAIT CITY - Kuwait's first parliamentary elections in which women could vote were a victory for political reformists but a disappointment for female candidates, none of whom won a seat, according to official results Friday.

Thirty-six of those who won seats in the 50-seat house were reformists, according to results of Thursday's vote published by the state-owned Kuwait News Agency. Twenty-one of them held seats in the previous parliament that the emir, Kuwait's ruler, dissolved last month.

There were 27 women running in the elections, but it was not immediately possible to tell how close any of them came to winning because the comprehensive vote count had not been released.

Women, who won the right to vote and run for office in the small oil-rich state last year, had few weeks to prepare for the vote after the emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, disbanded the house because he believed a dispute over electoral precincts was harming national unity

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