A Step In A One Thousand Mile Saudi Journey

In the midst of sensational Middle East news?Iraq, Palestine, Sudan, and pending Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations?a potentially far reaching event is taking place in Saudi Arabia: the registration process for the forthcoming municipal elections.

Some 40000 Saudis are expected to compete in elections in mid February 2005 for 1700 seats in 178 municipal councils. The enthusiasm is obvious and the campaign is already under way and highly spirited. Members of the Saudi Royal family are not entering the race, as they already enjoy ultimate political power. But sensing the public’s enthusiasm, they made sure of being photographed by the local and international media while registering to get their electoral ID Card.

By the standards of Western, and even emerging Third World democracies, the Saudi municipal elections are an extremely modest affair. But in the Saudi context they are a real breakthrough. This is a country in which both rulers and ruled are equally arch conservative, adhering, for the last two centuries, to the puritanic Islamic Wahhabi doctrine. During the last fifty years, repeated attempts by reform-oriented elements to open up the society and polity in Saudi Arabia had failed. But the recent overpowering democratic trends worldwide have even reached the shores of this medieval desert kingdom and could no longer be ignored.

To begin with, a small but steadily growing Saudi middle class has increasingly displayed unmistakable signs of unrest. More of them have recently and publicly expressed their discontent. Despite legal prohibition, Saudi women defiantly drove their cars in the streets of Riyadh; and prominent intellectuals published open letters to King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdulla demanding socio-political reform.

The first Gulf War, Desert Storm (1990-91), brought into the Arabian Peninsula nearly one million foreign fighters from some 35 different countries, with their modern weapons systems, communications gear, and different life styles. Such a foreign influx into the country could not but have a significant impact on Saudi society.

Nearly all neighboring countries to Saudi Arabia already practice one form or another of electoral participation, albeit of a defective nature. For years, Saudis had enviously watched parliamentary debates on other Arab satellites, in countries richer than theirs, such as Kuwait, as well as in poorer ones such as Yemen and Jordan. Even the tiny state of Qatar has the rabble-rouser Al-Jazeera T.V. Channel, which is watched by more Saudis than any other Arab country. Messages by their dissident compatriot Osama Bin Laden are periodically beamed from that channel, inciting Saudis against their Royal Family. The latter’s corruption and repugnant connections with the U.S. are constantly highlighted. While democracy is not part of Bin Laden’s agenda, his messages, as well as his followers’ periodic armed attacks inside the country, have no doubt contributed to the erosion of the legitimacy of the Saudi Royal Family.

But it was 9/11 which has brought a sea-change in the thinking, if not yet the practice, of the Saudi regime. The fact that most of the perpetrators of the cataclysmic events of that day were identified as Saudis, brought into world focus much of the backward realities of life in the country, provoking mounting international pressures for change.

No doubt some of these pressures were motivated by sincere concerns, but some others were driven by the desire of anti-Saudi groups in the U.S. to settle old scores. The call for democratizing the Middle East has become a battle cry for the Bush administration, especially after the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Despite its reluctance to change, the Saudi Royal Family is obviously yielding to these multiple pressures from within, from neighbors, and from without, although the effective change is still nominal, leaving much to be desired. Thus, for example, Saudi women, but not convicts, are barred from participation in the forthcoming Saudi municipal elections. Moreover, tens of human rights activists are currently in prison or on trial.

To be sure, the Saudi system is still worlds away from being a Westminister democracy; and it will probably never become one, yet this municipal election should be looked upon as a giant first step in the one-thousand mile journey toward a Saudi democracy. Despite may misgivings regarding its conduct in other areas, the Saudi regime should be commended for this initiative.