The final vote came after a nine-hour heated debate during which anti-women MPs tried to block the vote after realizing the government had a sufficient majority to pass the amendment.

But they succeeded in passing an addition to the amendment requiring Kuwaiti women who take part in the elections "to comply with regulations dictated by Islamic Shariah law", without explaining the nature of those guidelines.

And as for those who supported it?

Kuwaiti women now join their counterparts from Gulf neighbors Qatar, Oman and Bahrain in having the vote.

The amendment, which was finalized after several years of debate and struggle by Kuwaiti women, passed by a vote of 35 MPs for, including 14 ministers, 23 against and one abstention. It was opposed by Islamist and tribal legislators.

The result, announced by Parliament Speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi, was greeted with thunderous applause from the public gallery who also sang Kuwait's national anthem.

Women activists and their supporters came out of the Parliament building cheering the result, some in disbelief. They sang and danced in the Parliament's yard.

John notes as to how it was a liberal government acting-with just sufficient support from the parliament-that pushed through this reform, and says that one can be sure that Saudi readers will note it. I'd venture to say that you can almost count on it, and that Kuwaiti women getting the right to vote could be a real second wind for democracy in the Middle East. Here's to hoping that the wind has wings. Their success in obtaining the right to vote is a far cry from:

(...) ... some 77 percent of those who successfully passed the final secondary school examinations were girls. The girls also won all the top places in all the subjects. 

The following day, however, the girls, along with their mothers, had to stand by and watch while their brothers and fathers went to the polls to choose a new parliament.

It is not only at school level that the Kuwaiti girls are doing well. Girls also form a majority of university students in practically all subjects. In some discipline almost 80 per cent of the undergraduates are girls. And yet only one out of six girls emerging from the crucible of Kuwaiti education has any chance of getting a proper job that reflects her academic achievements.

" We must be in a unique situation in the world," says sociologist Ali al-Tarrah. " This may be the only country where the best educated part of the population is kept out of active life."

Good progress, but the women still have to wait to vote. On May 3, Kuwait's all-male Parliament failed to approve a bill that would have allowed women to vote and stand for election in time for municipal elections due to take place later this year.

It wasn't until 1976 that that bastion of democracy Switzerland finally gave all Swiss women the right to vote. And they only had a couple hundred years' practice.