"I'm happy, but I'm still under shock," Lama al-Suleiman, one of the two winners, told AFP, summing up the feelings of many election activists and watchers who had expected one woman at best to be voted into office.

"It's a big leap for Saudi women, an answer to what people want," said Suleiman, a 39-year-old mother of four.

Suleiman and fellow female winner Nashwa Taher ran on a list of heavyweight business people and industrialists which clinched the 12 board seats up for grabs, according to results released early Wednesday.

With only 100 women among the some 3,880 chamber members who cast ballots, the pair's victory was effectively handed by men.

"We should give them (women) a chance because they have little representation in society," one male voter said Tuesday, adding he had voted for four women.

The two businesswomen's win came several months after landmark municipal elections across oil-rich Saudi Arabia from which women were barred but which were credited by many for heightening public interest in the chamber polls in the Red Sea city and turning them into a hotly-contested race.

The fact that women, who previously were entitled only to vote for the Jeddah chamber's board of directors, stood as candidates "was also an unusual event which contributed to making this election unusual," said Othman Basaqr, a member of a task force which assisted the elections committee.