Women have begun voting in Saudi Arabia’s municipal elections for the first time in the history of the kingdom, which has long been under fire by international rights groups for suppressing women’s rights.

The polls that began on Saturday are the first open to female voters, with a total of 978 women having registered as candidates alongside 5,938 men.

They are competing for places on 284 councils, whose powers are restricted to local affairs, including responsibility for streets, public gardens and rubbish collection.

About 130,000 women have registered to cast their ballots, officials said, a figure that still falls well short of male voter registration, which stands at 1.35 million.

Women also said voter registration was hindered by bureaucratic obstacles as well as a lack of public awareness of the process.

In 2012, late Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud announced that women would be given the right to vote and run in municipal elections for the first time in the country. He also appointed 30 women to the country’s top advisory Shura Council before his death in January this year.

Women in Saudi Arabia face many restrictions and must get permission from male family members to travel, work or marry.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="550"] A woman drives a car on a highway in Riyadh, Saudi on March 29, 2014, as part of a campaign to defy Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving. ©AP[/caption]

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive, a ban that stems from a religious fatwa imposed by the country’s Wahhabi clerics. If women get behind the wheel in the kingdom, they may be arrested, sent to court and even flogged.

In the past years, dozens of women have been taking part in a campaign dubbed Women2Drive, challenging the ban by posting pictures and videos of themselves while driving on online social networks.

Riyadh has come under intense pressure by the activist groups for mistreating women. Amnesty International said in a report published in March that Saudi laws deliberately “deny women basic rights.”

“The disparity between genders is gaping; women are still required to have a male guardian, who controls their studies, travels, occupation, and marriage and to whom they are unconditionally obedient on these matters,” the report said.

By Press TV