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Kuwaiti women vote their way into history

June 29, 2006 10:43 IST

Kuwaiti women on Thursday cast their ballots for the first time as they voted to elect the Gulf state's parliament.

Twenty-eight women are running for the 50-seat house, a Kuwait interior ministry list said.

Though women won full political rights a year ago, some of them have been intimidated during campaigning.

The election is held to resolve a political crisis between the government and parliament that led Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah to dissolve the parliament in May.

Image: Kuwaiti men and women are separated by a curtain as they attend an election rally in Dahiyet Abdullah al-Salem in Kuwait City.

Photograph: Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP/Getty Images