Al-Awadhi, a liberal candidate, is in a strong position with final results expected later on Sunday [AFP]

The vote on Saturday was the third in just under three years after Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah dissolved the outgoing parliament in March following a standoff between MPs and the government.

Kuwaitis voted 21 new members into the 50-seat parliament and reduced Sunni Muslim groups to a minority as the country grapples with political turmoil that has frozen the country's economy.

Massuma al-Mubarak, one of the four women elected, was first by a large margin among the 10 top positions elected to the parliament from her district.

She also was the country's first female cabinet minister.

The three other women elected in the resounding victory are liberals Aseel al-Awadi, Rola Dashti and Salwa al-Jassar, an independent.

Dashti said that their sucess, in spite of Kuwait's male-dominated society and cultural social barriers is cause for celebration.

"For the last three years we've ran and to move and do this historical [achievement] without a party, without a quota, I think it is history in Kuwait," she said. "I think it is history for women in politics all over the world."

US-educated

All the four women were educated in the United States and hold doctorate degrees in either political science, economics or education.

But Dashti also stressed that all four women elected represent a wide variety of Kuwaiti women.

"Yes all of us are educated, but we also have a woman who won who is married to a non-Kuwaiti, one who is divorced, one who is not yet married, one whose mother is Lebanese," she said. "We represent different social strata."

Kuwaiti women, who make up 54.3 per cent of the 385,000 eligible voters, were running in the elections for only the third time after they were enfranchised in 2005. They won the right to vote in 2006.

Sixteen female candidates were among the 210 hopefuls standing for the 50-seat parliament.

Final results were expected later on Sunday.

Voter turnout was less than in previous years with only 56 per cent of Kuwaitis going to the polls.

Sunnis suffer

Kuwait has no officially recognised parties as candidates belong to either a political group, a tribe or they run independently.

But the election results showed Islamists losing ground.

The two mainstream Sunni groups, the Islamic Salafi Alliance and the Islamic Constitutional Movement, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, were dealt a heavy blow, winning three seats compared to the seven they held in the previous parliament.

The Shia Muslim minority gained significant seats, almost doubling their strength from five to a possible nine.

The resounding victory may offer hope that the political infighting that has frozen development will ease.

But under Kuwait's law, a new cabinet must be formed before elected MPs are able to hold their first formal session after two weeks, a process that could potentially be stalled by the government.

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