A parliamentary committee Sunday rejected a government proposal to grant disenfranchised Kuwaiti women the right to vote and stand as candidates in municipal elections, the head of the panel said.
The bill was put forward by the emirate's cabinet last October and would also have allowed women to take up appointed seats on the municipal council.
"Committee members were convinced that the government is not serious about women's rights, so they took the decision to reject the article on women," said Mukhled al-Azemi, a tribal-Islamist MP who heads the public utilities committee. "If the government is serious, it should prepare a special law for women's political rights."
The committee's decision can, however, be overturned by Kuwait's elected parliament.
But the 50-member house, dominated by Islamist and tribal MPs, has in the past rejected government-sponsored bills to grant women the right to vote and run for public office.
Municipal elections are held every four years but, as in parliamentary polls, only men are allowed to vote and stand for office in the conservative emirate.
The oil-rich Gulf state's constitution advocates equality of the sexes, but the electoral law grants political rights only to men.
After presenting his government's legislative programme to parliament in July, Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah promised to renew efforts to amend the electoral law to grant women political rights.
In November 1999, a bill granting women the right to vote and stand for office, put forward by Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah, was rejected by parliament under pressure from Islamist MPs and tribal leaders.
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