The more I hear of a parliamentary or presidential election campaign being held anywhere, the more I am convinced that the entire process is simply a game. The one who masters the tricks of the game will reap the benefits. On one hand are the common people who continue to live under the illusion that by voting for this or that candidate, they may improve their lives and solve their problems. On the other are the privileged, the intelligentsia, party leaders and activists who are the real beneficiaries of any election.
In order to win an election, all available means must be used. It doesn’t matter if legal or illegal tactics are used even if this leads to street battles between the two sides. For the most part, it is a merciless war, fought behind closed doors and along dark corridors, that may turn ugly any moment.
Here in the Kingdom, we have been reading reports of the Shoura Council considering choosing all or some of its members by election. It is a step eagerly awaited by many, who see in it an important development. If what we have read is true, then any such election would require the presence of various groups contesting and fighting among themselves. A similar practice is taking place in chambers of commerce elections, in which a number of people form an alliance among themselves so as to contest the elections as one group.
To have elections there has to be diversity — which means the people who are candidates belong to different cultural and intellectual schools and have different approaches to solving the problems facing the country. This necessarily calls for having parties that reflect political and cultural diversity. But as far as we know, our laws do not allow the formation of political parties or any such organizations.
Are we then witnessing a new era that will usher in a total transformation, allowing the presence of political parties and elections?
Regardless of whether the answer is yes or no, I say no to parliamentary elections if they are going to result in spilling the blood of a single individual in this country. I say no to elections if they will create psychological barriers and an atmosphere of animosity and hatred; I say no to elections if they are going to benefit a few at the expense of the many, and I say no to elections if they are intended to please this or that world power or would give rise to a fifth column living among us.
Elections would be acceptable if they build rather than destroy, unite rather than divide, and if they produced a legislative assembly that truly reflected the pulse of the street and spoke for all, those living in fashionable urban neighborhoods and those who live in a tent in the desert.
Arab News From the Local Press 25 June 2003
