The failure of women candidates to win even a single seat in Bahrain's landmark municipal election last week has been called "shocking" and "humiliating", but it also shows how efforts to have a bigger role for women go way beyond election day.

Indeed, many in the region say the results of the May 9 poll — all 31 of the 302 contestants lost — were predictable.

Some candidates say they did not know what to expect from the election.

Candidate Afaf Al Hamer from Central Governorate said she was "very excited" about contesting although she was not sure of winning in one of the most contested electoral districts, according to the Bahrain Tribune on polling day.

Women have only themselves to blame, since they have willingly submitted to their male relatives' choices of who to vote for, another candidate, Saba Al Asfour, said after the results were officially announced.

Women last voted in council elections in the 1950s, but had never before been allowed to run for office in Bahrain. They won this right under reforms launched with a referendum on a National Charter approved in February 2001.

The level of turnout in the polls — the first since 1957 and the first with women candidates — was 51.28 percent of Bahrain's 238,636 registered voters out of a total population of 650,000, with women's participation recorded at 51 percent.

While two men were elected unopposed, a runoff poll of the top two candidates in 17 constituencies — where no one got more than 50 percent of the vote — was held yesterday. But all the contestants were men.

Bahrain's Information Minister Nabeel Al Hamer cast his vote for his sister Afaf and said "women are much better organisers than men".

Domestic role

But his views hardly impressed others — reflecting how the deep roots of societal attitudes that view women as having mainly a domestic role and as not capable in politics were not going to be changed overnight by thefact that women could now vote in polls.

"Men are more capable and also women will never be totally dedicated to their post because they have to take care of their kids and their husbands. They can't be taking care of society as well, so I didn't vote for one," Fatma Mubarak, a female voter, in an extensive report in UAE's Gulf Today after the poll.

Engineer Abdullafit Al Sadeh said most of the female candidates running in the election were not "dedicated activists" and that is why he did not vote for any of them. "They don't have the time that our men do," he explained.

Candidate Laila Abdallah Mahdi, a nursery school administrator in Riffa, said that the reluctance of women to vote for female candidates was due to a lack of confidence.

Others added that the poll showed that while it was one step forward, much has to be done to improve the quality of this newfound women's right.

"Although women in Bahrain are better off than their sisters in other Gulf countries, we still have a long way to go to achieve our rightful position in society," said Bahraini human rights activist Ramla Jawad. "We're still discriminated against, and unfortunately, sometimes by our own sex," she added.

"To my disappointment, voters didn't even bother to look at the candidates' election programmes. I am truly shocked," said Saba Al Asfour, who only managed to get 115 votes — three percent of the 3,776 votes in the Northern Governorate's fifth constituency.

In a Gulf News report on Sunday, she stressed the need for "a total re-evaluation of the whole electoral process" by analysts and women activists in Bahrain.

Strategy needed

She argued that a strategy is needed to ensure that women voters understand the political process. As it, many voters entered polling stations lacking the slightest idea of what the municipal councils are all about.

Then, there was what she referred to as "instructions of some religious leaders".

"Some religious leaders played a major role in promoting many male candidates. And in trying to avoid committing sin if they ignored those dictates, large numbers of voters, especially in rural areas, voted blindly for certain candidates. Of course, all of whom were men," Saba added.

In the Bahraini daily Al Ayam , commentator Sawsan Al Shair also preferred to look at the election results not from the social perspective but from the religious viewpoint.

She said "religious organised groups" such as the National Islamic Wefaq (Harmony) Society and the Islah (Reform) Society emerged as big winners only because they understood the rules of the game. "They ran shrewd campaigns using all available means to promote their candidates," all of whom were men, she added.

No help from women

But what shocked Saba more is that Bahraini women themselves did not appear to trust women candidates: "I am sorry to say it but the fact is that they didn't think we were qualified to occupy the offices we were running for."

That is no surprise because men and women in the region have yet to understand democracy, which is at a nascent stage, says Mona Masood, a political science graduate and an editor at a publishing firm in the UAE.

Identifying social reasons for the women candidates' poor performance, Masood, who has been following developments in Bahrain closely, said: "A contest with 300 male candidates against only 31 females is no contest at all."

"More importantly, many of the winners are deserving because they are qualified to serve in the councils. That they were known in their wards gave them the edge over the women," she explained in an interview.

"Women are still socially and religiously restrained in the region. For example, if a household wants to get any government work done, the wife usually turns to the husband," she added. "A woman still believes that the man is more capable to fight for her rights."

But others say this is an attitude found in many parts of the world, not just the Middle East. "Why just the region? It is an attitude that has no nationality, race or religious specificity," Sara Al Ameri, a student at the American University of Dubai, pointed out. "The leadership may be progressive, but the society is still lagging behind."

Knowing well that the poll results have disappointed many women, King Sheikh Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa's wife, Sheikha Sabika Al Khalifa, said in a statement that women should continue their struggle to reinforce their presence on the political and national scenes.

With the just-concluded civic polls a dress rehearsal for the restoration of parliament in October, the defeat of women candidates and the calls for reassessment may yet go a long way in changing societal attitudes and ensuring better results in the coming election.