Don't give up on the Saudi electorate just yet

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia--Several Saudis that I have been speaking to in the past few days bemoan the low turnout at voter registration centers in Jeddah. All say that the municipal elections that Saudi Arabia is currently holding in three phases are just window-dressing for the Bush administration that has been calling for more democracy across the Middle East.

I can't deny that a high level of cynicism runs deep in certain sectors of Saudi society. This is to be expected after living for decades in a society in which freedom of expression and thought were both discouraged and sometimes severely curtailed.

Anti-government demonstrations until just recently were an extremely rare occurrence and a concept rejected by most Saudis. Now, with rising unemployment and spreading poverty among the lower economic classes, the Saudi government has realized that there is no other way forward than elections and a nascent democracy.

Several extremely educated and liberal Saudis I have spoken to told me they were not going to register or vote because they felt that either the elections had not been organized correctly or that only establishment figures had a chance at winning.

But I think they are minority of the Saudi electorate. For sure, not allowing women to vote in this round of elections has taken a lot of the excitement out of holding our first elections in over 40 years (the last municipal elections were held in 1963 in the Western region). But women have been promised the vote in the next municipal elections in 2009, and are pushing their brothers, husbands, fathers and sons from the behind the scenes to participate in the electoral process both as voters and candidates.

One recent newspaper article in a local Arabic daily quoted a Jeddah candidate boasting that he was running without a platform, explaining that he would just do what the electorate wanted him to do once he was elected. A friend of mine complained to me about this man, pointing out that this was bad for our democracy.

I pointed out that in all democracies there are the nuisance candidates, people who run in elections just for the hell of it. No one usually pays much attention to such candidates except for their comic value, and the majority of wacky candidates never even come close to winning.

In a country such as ours where democracy is a new concept, it should be expected that some in the electorate be cynical and even refuse to participate in the process. But as we saw in Riyadh, many Saudis there were upset that they had not registered once the campaigning began and they saw the various exciting candidates that were plugging for their votes.

I myself registered to vote last Sunday by visiting my local voting center in a Jeddah Municipality building in the Al-Balad district downtown. The whole process took only 15 minutes. I came armed with my Saudi ID card, rent receipts and an old electricity bill to provide proof of my residency. The friendly registrar chatted with me for a few minutes as he filled out my registration form, not even bothering to check my receipts or bill. I then proceeded to another man who entered my data into a computer. When he was done I went to the last station to have my picture taken by a digital camera. In a few seconds, a whirring machine spat out my brand new plastic voter card, complete with a color photo of my face, my name and a registration number.

I have been a tireless cheerleader of the elections among my relatives, some of whom have been reluctant to register.

"Oh, I'm really too busy right now to do that," one male cousin told me on the phone a few days ago when I gushingly encouraged him to register. "Of course not!" I replied. "It's so easy and fast."

My own father, who was not planning to register because of his advanced age, was swept up in my enthusiasm and decided he was going to register after all.
It shouldn't be too difficult for him to register, as his local registration center in the Khalidiah district is in the boys' school just across the street from his house. He now has no excuse not to register.

No one ever said that democracy was easy or perfect, but it is the best way forward as it gives voice to people's hopes, fears, needs and aspirations. Saudi men who fail to register and vote this time around, I think, will live to regret it. Just wait until 2009 when the next municipal elections are held.

I'm sure many more Saudis, including women, will happily sign up for this experiment in democracy. May the cynics be forewarned!

Comments or questions? E-mail the author at rasheed@arabnews.com.