Registration for the municipal elections has begun in Riyadh. Apart from some newspaper articles and a few people interested in participating, there has been little change in the public atmosphere. In Al-Riyadh newspaper on Wednesday, the front page carried no reference to the elections that is an important event for our country and us. As I was curious to find some coverage on the elections, I checked the local pages inside the paper and found some reports. Nonetheless, I thought that was not right for such a major event.
Leaving aside newspaper coverage, how have the first days of registering voters gone? How have the papers reported this story? In one paper there was a picture of a big registration center in Riyadh; the room was full of empty chairs with only two men present. The story detailed how the computers in one center had malfunctioned and how it had taken 90 minutes to get them going again. At another place, there was an electrical failure. In all the newspaper stories, there were expectations that large numbers would register but that seems not to have been the case.
In heavily populated areas of Riyadh, only 20-35 voters registered whereas in less populated ones, the numbers were as low as 8-16. In some other areas people came to the centers out of curiosity to find out why crowds were gathering.
What do these things reflect? For one thing, they reflect a lack of interest in an important event that is happening for the first time in the Kingdom. In a poll conducted by Okaz last month, 56 percent of the 554 people interviewed said that they would not vote while only 5 percent said they want to be candidates. Somehow this suggests that people need to know more about the elections. Awareness campaigns should have been concentrated and widespread; it is not enough just to have newspapers carry stories about the elections. People in villages and remote places should have been contacted by officials who would have explained the process and procedures. Not everyone understands what elections are and why they are important. Election centers have been receiving many questions and inquiries about the technicalities of the elections; that eagerness to know should have been capitalized on in order to increase public awareness of the elections’ significance.
Awareness campaigns are not only about how to register and vote; they are also about who gets to vote and to run for office. In all published material pertaining to the elections, the rules clearly stated that Saudis, aged 21 or over, who were not in the military and who were resident in the municipality were eligible to vote and to run for office. This was later amended to “all MALE citizens” including prisoners.
Realistically speaking, if anyone showed interest in the elections and was active in learning about them from the beginning, it was women’s groups. Women were organized in their efforts to be participants in the process; in fact, four women announced their intentions to run for local councils. They even presented platforms, detailed and professionally produced. Meetings and lectures about the elections were attended by large numbers of women. And of course, later they were told that they could not participate, either as voters or as candidates. The reasons were basically that there was a shortage of separate registration centers for women, that women did not have ID cards and that men should go first and that next time, women MIGHT have a chance. In a country where virtually all public facilities are duplicated to create “women only” sections, the statement about a shortage of centers is hardly believable. In any case, there were plenty of suggestions from women about how to overcome the obstacles.
Illogical and frustrating as the official logic might be, some people were quick to support it. One woman columnist wrote that in the election women should not be first and that men should go first to test the waters, so to speak. She then went on to say that women’s experiences in charitable society elections had been very disappointing. To her, I will say that the experience is new for BOTH men and women and just because it is new is no reason to deny it to women. Another columnist said that there were not enough centers for registering women and that society was not ready for women voting. I have a question here: In the 1960s how did Saudi society look upon girls’ education and girls’ schools? There was much resistance at the time but in spite of it, King Faisal gave the orders to proceed and so the Kingdom then had schools for both boys and girls. Would any sensible person today say that girls’ education was a bad move or a mistake? It all comes down to how we perceive ourselves and how much trust we have in our own people.
The decision that prisoners can vote is, at the least, controversial. In many countries, they are not allowed to vote. The fact that they have broken the law results in their losing some of the rights of citizens. In Saudi Arabia, however, it was decided that prisoners should have the same right as all other male citizens. Well, all right but women are also citizens. Shouldn’t they have the same rights as men and prisoners?
Apart from a number of technicalities and legal niceties, there are other points that should be taken into consideration — for example the idea that for some voters, ID verification should come from the district “omda” (the headman, so to speak). In the past this would have been acceptable but it is not realistic today since the whole system of “omda” is now more decorative than functional. Historically, the “omda” was a government appointee who lived in a district and knew everyone there.
He was able to confirm identities and provide information. As appealing as this traditional system is, it simply does not work any longer. These days, neighbors often do not know each other and people in once street have no idea of who lives in the next one. To depend on this system would detract from the seriousness of the whole registration process.
The computer registration and suggested idea of doing an online voting might be a possibility in countries where computers are an integral part of life. Here, however, as a recent survey showed, 60 percent of public employees do not use computers and 75 percent do not know how to use the Internet. Obviously, we should think twice before attempting to use this method.
As important and vital as this first election is to every one of us, we should have been much more thorough in our preparations. Things do not happen simply because we want them to.
