Two years ago, largely at the urging of the Bush administration, the
first elections in Saudi history were held for municipal councils in a
small number of cities, including Jidda, Riyadh and Mecca. Only men
could vote and only half the members were elected, but still the
elections were hailed as emblems of change.
Increasingly, however, the councils are being dismissed as symbols of the opposite: political stagnation...
“The curse of the oil money is that it has stopped all reforms,”
said Sulaiman al-Hattlan, editor in chief of Forbes Arabia, based in
Dubai, and a Saudi advocate. “The more money you have, the more
arrogant you become, because you think you can implement anything your
way.”
Over the past year, the government has cracked down on
advocates of change, placed restrictions on their meetings and even
scrapped some long-promised initiatives. The city councils have proved
powerless in the face of Saudi Arabia’s ingrained governmental
bureaucracy and a decidedly vague mandate. According to one council
member, more than half the decisions made by the councils have not been
carried out. Most of the others have been in support of the central
government.
“The people in the councils want to make you think
that they’re working, but ultimately they are powerless,” said Bassim
Alim, a prominent Jidda lawyer and an advocate of change. “The rest is
all for show,” he said...
Many political reform efforts have slowed considerably, if not come to
a halt, advocates say. As the fruits of high oil prices flooded the
country’s coffers and allowed the government to reassert its position
as a cradle-to-grave patron of its people, the sense of crisis has
ebbed and the impetus for many changes has subsided, they say...
In February, Saudi Arabia’s security forces rounded up 10 men
connected to the country’s reform movement in two cities, Jidda and
Medina, charging them with financing terrorism.
Security
officials said the men, whose names were not initially disclosed, were
collecting money and smuggling it to “suspicious bodies” in Iraq. But a
day later it emerged that at least three of the men signed a petition
directed at the king calling for a new constitution based on Islamic
law, curbs on the powers of the Interior Ministry, an election of
members of the Shura Council and a more equitable allocation of Saudi
Arabia’s wealth and land.
Shocked reform advocates saw the
arrests as a signal of how low their fortunes had fallen. The group did
submit the petition to the king in April, but members said they had
heard no response.
Don't be fooled by the mere mechanics of an "open" election. Respect for individual rights is a much more revealing barometer of genuine reform. Just ask the arrested Saudi petition signers.
