It would be easy to conclude that the recent Saudi elections didn’t matter. Neither women nor the millions of non-Saudis could vote, and the Saudi men who did take part were merely choosing half the members of municipal councils. The elections – held in three rounds, ending on 21 April – did nothing to shake the authority of the ruling House of Saud; nor will the elected councillors exercise any real power.
But, symbolically, the event did matter. These were the country’s first nationwide elections. As recently as 1992, the Saudi monarch, King Fahd – then, unlike today, in active charge of the country’s affairs – declared bluntly that elections were not compatible with Islam. At that time the furthest the king and the senior princes were ready to go in the direction of political reform was to create a consultative council (majlis al-shura) whose members were – and still are -- entirely appointed.
So the elections mattered, first, because they represented a U-turn in official thinking; and, second, because despite the flaws -- the logistics were somewhat chaotic and voter registration was low – Saudis showed they want political change and accordingly hope this small step will be followed by bigger and more adventurous ones.
Modest as they were, the elections arguably marked the birth of politics in a country where hitherto decision-making has been the closely-guarded preserve of a royal elite. A process has been started which, however slow, will be hard to stop. The genie is out of the bottle.
Whatever their misgivings, the Saudi rulers have decided that holding elections is, on balance, less dangerous than continuing to resist them. Since 9/11, in the face of mounting pressures externally from the Bush administration, and internally from a rapidly growing and increasingly dissatisfied population, they have concluded that clinging to the status quo is no longer an option.
In each of the three rounds, the winners were Islamists – on the face of it, relatively moderate Islamists – backed by popular religious preachers. This has dismayed liberals but, given the nature of Saudi society, is scarcely surprising. In the absence of political parties, non-government organizations or other manifestations of civil society, the power of the mosque remains unchallenged. And as elsewhere in the world, the Islamists showed how well they have mastered high-tech methods of exerting their influence – in this case through energetic use of text messages, e-mails and the Internet.
The key question for the future is whether one step will indeed lead to others. In principle, a cautious programme of reform, spread over several years, could mean that Saudi citizens will eventually elect some or all of the members of the majlis al-shura (now 150-strong). Officials have even suggested that Saudi women will be able to vote in the next municipal elections, in 2009.
But neither the pace nor the ultimate destination of reform are certain.
The Saudi princes, like other Arab rulers, are certainly coming to realize that President Bush is serious when he speaks of promoting democracy in the “Greater Middle East”. He intends this to be a dominant – perhaps even the dominant – theme of his second term. In other words, the Americans will not leave them alone. Once they have started down the road of reform, they will be expected to continue.
However, the Saudi princes will do their utmost to retain control over both the timing and content of reform – and, if they can, to avoid letting Islamists become its main beneficiaries. Having launched the experiment of municipal elections, they will pause and digest this novel experience. Habitually, they move when prodded by events or by their powerful ally; without prodding, they relapse into what British colonial officials used to call “masterly inactivity”.
Moreover America’s wishes, however insistent, are not the only factor to be taken into account. There is also security. The Saudi rulers want to believe they have largely overcome the threat posed over the last two years by an armed Islamist movement viewed as the Saudi wing of Al-Qaida. If, however, this judgement proves premature, they may decide that harsh security measures are a more urgent need than a gradual political opening-up.
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