​Riyadh – Women running for the board of directors of the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry have nothing to worry about.

That’s because they have two women taking care of them: Lama Sulaiman and Nashwas Taher, both winners of seats on the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s board of director in the 2005 election.

“Focus, unite and win over men’s trust – and votes,” both Sulaiman and Taher advised Saudi businesswomen in Riyadh during a meeting held by the RCCI.

The meeting aimed to familiarize businesswomen with the election experiences Saudi women had had in Jeddah’s 2005 elections.

The RCCI will hold its board election in August.

This is the third time that women run for public office at one of the Kingdom’s chambers of commerce and industry. Sulaiman and Taher made history by winning seats on the JCCI’s board in 2005. They were two out of 17 women who ran that year, while the 10 other seats went to businessmen.

However, the surprise victory of women in Jeddah was not to repeat itself with women in the Eastern Province during the Dammam Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s elections in 2006. None of the female candidate won.

“I was very disappointed by the Eastern Province elections,” Taher told business women in Riyadh, “but I hope you have a better chance in Riyadh.”

As for now, the primary question is whether a good number of women would run, not to mention whether they would win. So far, nearly four months before the election, not a single businesswoman has yet announced her candidacy.

Perhaps the fact that only 10 businesswomen members of the RCCI attended the meeting with Sulaiman and Taher is a telling one. All of them told the Saudi Gazette that they were not interested in running, but will be supportive of those who do decide to run, which somehow contradicts the whole point of Sulaiman’s and Taher’s efforts.

“Don’t let them give you a green light to do anything and then end up not using it,” said Sulaiman. “Run, and try to get as many women to run. Of course, not all of you would win, but it’s important to make a statement with the sheer number of women who run. The more, the better, and the stronger the statement would be for society that you are ready.”

“It’s important for as many women to run,” said Taher, “The RCCI should play an encouraging role in getting women to run.”

Both Taher and Sulaiman said society should also be ready for women to run, or the campaign would be doomed to failure.

“Jeddah was ready, the society there was ready, and both men and women were ready for women to become board members and make decisions,” said Taher. “They knew the importance of having female voices heard on the board. I know Riyadh is very much different from Jeddah, but only you can tell if the society you live in is ready for such a step and how to handle your society.”

Sulaiman suggested conducting a study that would probe the readiness of Riyadh’s perception of women running in the RCCI election, the obstacles women might face upon running and how to overcome them, as well as how to encourage men to vote for women.