Saudis Gingerly Experiment With Democracy

When the last strains of the day’s final prayer call have rung off over the sands, the voters come through the darkness to a scabby, vacant lot. The political candidate has pitched a tent here, set out potted ficus trees and brought portable spotlights that wheel up into the desert sky.

In this makeshift political hall here in the capital, two economics professors lecture earnestly on privatization. Lured by the novelty of elections in an absolute monarchy, 100 men sip tiny cups of bitter coffee and nod over campaign pamphlets. Little boys cling to their fathers’ hands. There’s not a woman in sight.

This is the campaign trail, Saudi style. In the first nationwide elections in the kingdom’s history, eligible Saudis will elect members of municipal councils in voting that begins today.

With ballots still being counted from last month’s Iraqi election, this vote has been touted by Saudi, American and British officials as another important stroke of reform in the Middle East. Yet the polling in Saudi Arabia is both progressive and retrograde. It is evidence of a slight political opening, but also a reminder of just how deeply undemocratic this region remains.

Only half the seats on the councils will be decided by elections; the other half will be picked by the ruling House of Saud. Women can’t vote or run as candidates. Some women are hoping the royal family will at least appoint some female council members, but there’s no word on whether that will happen.

“We don’t take it seriously. It’s a joke,” said Hatoon Ajwad Fassi, a woman who teaches history at Riyadh’s King Saud University. “It’s too bad they’re not aware of the loss the country is suffering by not having women participate.”

In this particular campaign tent, supporters of candidate Abdulaziz Alomary fretted that he’d done himself grave political damage by allowing a female journalist to visit.

Others barred from voting include members of the military and expatriates; the legal voting age is 21. Registration has been sluggish, with many voters skeptical, others openly scornful. The councils are a new concept in Saudi Arabia, and whether they will have significant authority, or be effective, remains a mystery.

Still, if Saudis are tepid about the prospect of casting ballots, they are tripping over one another to run for office. In Riyadh alone, almost 1,800 candidates are competing for 127 positions.

“This is the first body elected by the people, and we hope [the government] will give it some power,” said Alomary, a real estate developer and an Islamic history professor. “They can control it anyway, because half of them will be appointed.”

Saudis are unsure whether the vote is the beginning of reforms or an empty gesture meant to ease pressure from Western governments and domestic advocates of democracy. The puzzle is part of a wider confusion about political change -- and the American role in it -- in wake of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

U.S. officials have hailed the election in Iraq and called for greater democracy elsewhere in the Arab world. President Bush, in his State of the Union speech last week, gently prodded the Saudi royal family to “demonstrate its leadership ... by expanding the role of its people in determining their future.” Egypt, he said, should “now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.”

But many Arabs are cynical about U.S. intentions. They are keenly aware that the United States is closely allied with the House of Saud and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who is expected to win a fifth term this year by running as the sole candidate in a referendum in which the choices are “yes” or “no.”

Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political scientist and TV talk show host from the United Arab Emirates, cheered what he called “the spring of elections” -- a wave of voting in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt.

“If even one Arab is allowed in his own free conscience to go and exercise his right to vote, that’s a victory for democracy,” he said in a recent interview. But like many Arabs, he doesn’t believe that the U.S. has any intention of promoting a true democratic overhaul of the region.

“America talks about political reform in Egypt, yet it wants Hosni Mubarak to be in power to pursue Mideast peace. It talks about reform in Saudi Arabia, yet it wants the royal family in place to preserve its oil interests,” Abdulla said. “There is an inherent contradiction when this administration talks about democracy and freedom in this region. People are not dumb, and the contradiction they see is just too stark.”

In Egypt, Mubarak has been moving in recent weeks to silence opposition. A lawmaker who called for presidential term limits that could end Mubarak’s 23-year hold on power has been jailed. So were leftist activists who were distributing leaflets at the Cairo International Book Fair that ended Tuesday. The brochures were printed to resemble a playing card -- but the faces of Mubarak and his son Gamal, widely rumored to be his chosen successor, had been superimposed over the face of the king.

“Mubarak has closed all doors to a peaceful and democratic transition,” wrote Egyptian analyst Mohammad Abdelhakim Diab in the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds al Arabi. “The president has stifled all freedom of expression and the ability to change in a country that sorely needs them.”

Meanwhile, Saudi skeptics dismiss their election as a contrived exercise designed to relieve pressure on the royal family.

“The government wants to show others, partly the American media, that we have elections, irrespective of the details,” said Mohsen Awajy, a lawyer who has been critical of the government. “Why should we engage in something that’s useless? This is just to pass the years, to consume time, to slow down any movement toward reform.”

For all their flaws, the Saudi elections have unleashed an unprecedented level of public debate within the kingdom. Even Awajy acknowledged that this was a “very small step in a long, hard path. But we have to walk. We have no alternative.”

The excitement was palpable in the last week as a festive chaos of tent meetings, lectures and canvassing overtook Riyadh.

In a land where the public display of images of people’s faces is considered a religious taboo, candidates’ pictures have been printed on T-shirts and splashed across vast roadside billboards.

In a nation where political gatherings have long been banned, candidates have been holding nightly rallies, debates and lectures under their Bedouin-style tents, which dot vacant lots all over the capital. Discussions range from city services to corruption to poetry -- anything to stimulate debate and attract voters.

Citizens have been eagerly tracking the race, logging on to the Internet to praise and denigrate the candidates and to gossip over how much money they’ve spent. Many budgets have stretched into the thousands of dollars; there are no campaign finance rules.

“There has been some tension on the Internet, with people attacking each other,” said Tariq al Kasabi, a bespectacled businessman who’s vying against more than 100 other candidates in his Riyadh neighborhood. “They said I had policies that promote gender desegregation.”

The rumors weren’t true, he explained hurriedly. Although Kasabi said women should be allowed to vote “next time,” he thought it was better to go ahead with the vote than to waste time arranging for separate polling stations for women. “We have to open the doors gradually,” he said. Election officials have said women may be allowed to vote in 2009.

“Most people don’t think this election will solve the whole problem,” said Othman al Kasabi, who is running his father’s campaign. “But it’s the right step.”