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Monday, December 23, 2024  
21 Jumada Al-Akhirah 1446  

Bahrain gets first woman MP

Bahrain gets first woman MPA woman won a seat in Bahrain's parliament for the first time as registration for November 25 polls ended late on Monday without a contest in her constituency, an official said.
"Only Latifa al-Qouood remained as a candidate in the seventh constituency, making her a winner by law," Ahdeyah Ahmed, spokeswoman of the election high committee, told AFP.
Qouood had reached the second round in Bahrain's last legislative polls but was eventually beaten by an candidate whose camp dominates the outgoing chamber.
Some 199 candidates, including 16 women, have registered for next month's polls to the 40-member assembly.
Bahraini women were given the vote for the first time in a 2001 referendum which turned the small Gulf archipelago into a constitutional monarchy.
Thirty-one women stood as candidates in municipal and parliamentary elections the following year but without winning a seat.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006