Parliament met to discuss a bill limited to allowing women to participate in municipal elections. But the government asked the house for an urgent vote on granting full political rights to women instead.

Islamist and conservative lawmakers narrowly defeated a similar women's rights decree issued in 1999.

The prime minister said women could be appointed to the 15-member cabinet, but women activists criticized the passing of the bill as being too late for women to vote and run for local elections

Islamist MPs added a clause stipulating women must abide by Islamic Sharia rules when voting or running for office. MPs and women activists said doing so could cause burdens such as requiring separate polling stations for men and women.

The bill, already approved by the country’s cabinet, would allow women to vote and run for election. It is backed by the Islamist Umma Party, the first Sunni Muslim group in Kuwait to endorse women’s suffrage.

A previous attempt to grant women the right to vote was rejected by the country’s male-dominated parliament in 1999.

In Kuwait’s political system, a majority of the 50-member National Assembly are elected for four-year terms by about 15 percent of the population, while the prime minister and cabinet are chosen by the monarch. The country’s next parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in 2007.