RIYADH, 30 March 2003 — Elections to the Shoura Council and a role for women in it are feasible in the near future because the country’s society is evolving rapidly, the advisory body’s secretary-general said yesterday.

“Definitely it is feasible,” Hamoud Al-Badr told Reuters when asked if partial elections to the Shoura Council were likely in the near-term. “I think it would come from the evolution of our society. It is evolving rapidly.”

Established in 1993, the 120-member Shoura Council has gradually been taking a more active and public role in legislation in the past few years.

In reply to a question on whether women were likely to become Shoura members soon, Al-Badr replied: “Maybe it will happen faster than you think. Things are changing very fast. It is not that difficult.”

Al-Badr said there were already three paid female advisers to the Shoura Council since last year. The body had already been taking “advice” from prominent female members of Saudi society for several years.

To get around the Kingdom’s policies of strict gender segregation, women attending the weekly sessions talk to male council members through a televised link from a separate room.

He also said he was hopeful the body would become a member of the Geneva-based Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) in April, a step likely to enhance Saudi Arabia’s overseas image.

Al-Badr said the three women advisers had traveled with other council representatives to a meeting of the IPU earlier this year. They would also be invited to Chile in April to attend the IPU session which will vote on Saudi Arabia’s membership application. “We are optimistic about that,” he said.

Al-Badr said a landmark petition for political reform presented to Crown Prince Abdullah in January this year was a positive development.

“It’s a good document, a balanced document. I think they (the signatories) are acting according to the present situation,” he said.

Al-Badr dismissed perceptions by Western media and observers that the Shoura Council was a docile body which merely “rubber-stamped” government decisions.

“According to our analysis, between 85 and 95 percent of our decisions are accepted by the government,” he said.

The council made headlines in January when it rejected a law drawn up by the Finance Ministry to introduce income tax on foreign expatriates working in the Kingdom.

Al-Badr said council members were able to vote anonymously through an electronic system, and abstentions were discouraged.