JEDDAH, 3 March 2005 — When the registration period passed the midway mark, only seven percent of eligible men in Jeddah had registered their names to vote in the forthcoming municipal election in the final phase of the three-stage balloting process across the Kingdom.
According to Abdullah Al-Muallami, the outgoing mayor, a total of 200,000 people in Jeddah were expected to register as voters. Out of the 2.3 million residents in the city, only 500,000 Saudi men are eligible to vote. The total number of registered voters so far is 35,043, a little more than seven percent of the number of eligible men who will elect seven members to the 14-member Jeddah Municipal Council for which balloting will take place on April 21 along with the rest of the Western Province. The other seven members will be appointed by the government.
On Tuesday, 2,803 voters had registered their names at the election centers in the precincts of Jeddah, Rabigh, Khulais, Al-Laith, Al-Kamel and Qunfudha.
According to Muhammad Al-Yami, the head of media center at the Jeddah municipality, registration was going on normally and he pointed out that the whole process only takes five minutes. He said people were showing up in good numbers at election centers to register their names. For instance, he said, statistics collected from election centers on Saturday showed that 1,914 voters registered in Jeddah, 88 in Rabegh, 123 in Khulais, 146 in Al-Kamel, 229 in Al-Laith and 874 in Qunfudha.
Al-Yami called on voters to come forward and register before it gets crowded toward the end of the registration period. March 16 is the last date for registration in the Western Region. The process began on Feb. 15.
Dr. Essam Katoa, the head of election center at New Jeddah municipality, the voters’ list would be issued on March 19, a day before the four-day registration of candidates begins. The preliminary list of candidates will be announced on March 27 and the final list on April 9.
Across the region there are 61 election centers, with 45 located in the city and 16 in the sub-regions, including Qunfudha, Al-Laith and Rabigh.
The month-long voter registration continues on a daily basis from 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
With election centers set up at municipalities, schools and institutions, direction signs were in place to guide citizens to the registration points.
The registration process had got off to a slow start with many south Jeddah residents attributing it to the weak awareness campaign in that part of the city. A good number of residents are unaware of voter registration since most advertisements are on main streets and near traffic lights. They also allege that in north Jeddah there has been more advertising and that voter registration has consequently been high.
One south Jeddah resident said that the brochures that were distributed were unclear about what was going on. He pointed out, “Most people did not understand the sentence ‘Your voice will never be heard if you do not register it.’ Most of our election information came from newspapers. Even the TV advertising was unclear and did not provide the public easily understandable information about the nature and timing of the elections.”
Another resident of south Jeddah said: “The election campaign did not cover all of Jeddah. We only got information from newspapers. Most people probably will not participate in the election because they do not know the services that municipal councils provide for them. We should all participate and make sure that this national experience is successful.”
