Many Saudis may not be aware that under the municipal election law, a candidate representing one constituency may fail to gain a single vote from the people of his neighborhood and still win the election. He can win because voters from other areas, rather than those in his neighborhood, strongly backed him. Under this system, a candidate may find himself representing a neighborhood that in fact did not vote for him.
This is indeed a very strange situation where, under the municipal election system, people are allowed to vote for both the candidates in their constituencies as well as those in the other six.
The confusion became clear following the announcement of the election results in Riyadh. Many voters went to the polls to vote for the candidate from their neighborhood whom they believed would represent them in the municipal council. They were unaware that their votes might not take their candidate to the council and that, thanks to the system that allows them to vote for candidates running in other constituencies, they might help candidates from other areas win and so represent them on the council.
When a blind old man was asked by a reporter at a Riyadh polling station for whom he would vote, the man answered he would vote for a candidate that the people of the neighborhood have trusted to represent and speak for them. The man was unaware that a candidate might win a seat on the council through votes from outside the constituency. Even members of the educated class who are supposed to know how the system works thought a candidate who wins a majority of votes in their neighborhood would represent the people of that area in the council.
The election results proved such assumptions wrong. I tried in vain to convince an academic friend that it is not necessary for a candidate to secure the votes in his neighborhood to win the election.
This unfortunately is the view held by many who still think whoever won the majority of the votes in their area will represent them because he knows their concerns. They think that if he succeeded in the first term in responding to their needs, they will back him for a second term or look for someone more suitable.
It is this system that has been applied in our first municipal election that allowed for the alliances and horse-trading that accompanied the process. The election commission should tell us the number of votes each candidate won from voters in his neighborhood as well as those from other areas. This would tell us who got how many votes and from which constituency. This is a problem with the system which needs to be addressed at once.
