(5 Jul 2003)
1. Wide shot of traffic on road
2. Billboards on side of road
3. Close up of picture of face on billboard
4. Various of signs
5. Various of women inside mock polling station
6. Various of women voting
7. Close up of ballot being put into ballot box
8. SOUNDBITE (Arabic): Nagah Kram, Voter:
"Concerning the Kuwaiti women, one of their important goals is to get into the parliament and to prove their political right. The Kuwaiti women have struggled a lot and they are doctors and very high-ranked in the government, so what is the reason to stop them from getting into the parliament?"
9. Close up of ballot boxes
10. SOUNDBITE (Arabic): Fatima Modeyra, Vote organiser:
"Because we feel that the Kuwaiti women have no presence in voting and electing, we decided in this symbolic step to take an emotional participation in this election day. Even if they were ten, or a hundred or a thousand, these women have the right to choose any representative from their area instead of crying. So we decided to invite them to the Kuwaiti Journalists' Association to participate in choosing the representative from their areas."
11. Various of men standing outside polling station
12. Men looking over list
13. Various of men voting
14. Close up of computer screen
15. Man working on computer
16. Men outside polling station
17. SOUNDBITE (Arabic): Jasim Mohammed Ankhourafy, House Speaker of Kuwaiti Parliament:
"This election is going on with full freedom and democracy and secrecy to choose the elected, whomever they want. This is the citizen's day to choose who is good, and if they make a poor choice they are responsible for it."
18. Men standing outside polling station
STORYLINE:
Kuwaitis voted on Saturday in elections for the all-male parliament of the oil-rich Gulf state.
During campaigning, many liberal Kuwaitis complained about a system in which only men over the age of 21 can cast ballots.
Women have been kept out of politics since the country elected its first parliament in 1963.
However, scores of women came out for mock elections on Saturday.
Organisers made the setup as real as possible, with booths, candidate posters, brochures and buttons or badges.
The results of these mock elections will not count toward the official results.
Under Kuwait's system, the Emir has the final say and the power to dissolve the legislature.
Still, 50-seat Parliament does have significant influence: it must approve all legislation and has blocked the Emir's attempts to give women the vote.
There are no political parties in Kuwait, with many fearing this would bring political strife. Candidates run as representative of three fundamentalist and two liberal "movements", or as independents.
Voting for the actual members of parliament opened on Saturday morning, with polls closing in the evening.
First results are expected late on Saturday night.
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