Saudi women face off against men for first time in elections

The municipal councils are the only government body in which Saudi citizens can elect representatives, so the vote is widely seen as a small but significant opening for women to play a more equal role in Saudi society.

[...] women face challenges on the campaign trail:

Because of Saudi Arabia's strict policy of segregation of the sexes, they cannot address male voters directly and have to speak from behind a partition — or have male relatives speak for them.

In an effort to create a more level playing field, the General Election Committee banned both male and female candidates from showing their faces in promotional flyers, billboards or in social media.

When she meets with female voters, she talks to them at the hotel conference hall she's rented in Buraydah, 220 miles (350 kilometers) northwest of Riyadh.

While the councils do not have legislative powers, they do oversee a range of community issues, such as budgets for maintaining and improving public facilities like parks, roads and utilities.

While calling the vote a "step forward for women," Rothna Begum of Human Rights Watch noted that because male candidates cannot directly address women, they could easily disregard the female vote because it is proportionally so much smaller.

At his campaign headquarters in Saudi Arabia's second-largest city of Jiddah, Bassam Akhdar said he allocated a night specifically to reach out to the female electorate, with female staff lined up to explain his platform.

Despite vast differences between Saudi Arabia's cultural sensitivities and the bombast often associated with campaigns in the West, criticism of women's participation has largely been muted, though one prominent cleric warned against this being a Western-style election.

Women were also given licenses to practice law, and labor rules were changed to allow women to work as sales clerks in lingerie and women's clothing stores.