With a fairly good number of women winning municipal council seats in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, we can put to rest criticisms that the Kingdom is not ready to elect women to pubic posts.
What is truly remarkable is that in areas thought to be conservative, voters did not consider gender a deciding factor in electing their representatives to their municipal councils. Salma Al-Otebi won in Madrakah, which is about 93 kilometers from Makkah, and Mona El-Emery and Fadhila Al-Attawy won seats in Tabuk. Hinuwf Al-Hazmi won in Al-Jouf. Only less surprising was a familiar name in Jeddah, Lama Al-Suleiman, who won a seat.
These victories point to a serious flaw in some people’s positions that politics is no place for a woman and the decision-making process must be left to men. Perhaps more importantly, the municipal council wins go a long way to what many Saudi men have said all along. They simply do not have a problem with women seeking elected office if they are qualified.
But even if women had not won any of the seats up for grabs on the 284 local councils throughout the country, it’s not really the point.
The three elections we have witnessed over the last decade – in 2005, 2011 and on Saturday – is a test run for Saudis, a form of practicing the democratic process.
Given the successes women have experienced in Saturday’s election, it will be a tragedy not only to women but to Saudi men as well if the government pulls the plug on this democratic gesture so early in what is clearly an experiment in democracy. Saudis must get used to the idea that voting is an integral part of participating in the decision-making process of our government and the average Saudi citizen has a say in domestic policy.
That means voting whenever the opportunity arises and ensuring that women have easy access to the polls. It also means loosening restrictions on publicizing voter registration drives and “get out the vote” campaigns. Sooner or later the General Election Committee must reconsider its campaign restrictions that make it nearly impossible to get candidate’s message to the voters.
The committee’s tight control over how candidates conduct their campaigns is likely due to the so-called Golden Lists, or Recommended List, that was adopted in the 2005 municipal elections in which clerics and scholars issued text messages recommending certain candidates. The tactic defied the committee’s ban against creating alliances but it worked due to obvious reasons.
Understandably, the election committee wants to keep such strategies to a minimum. The contrast between Saturday’s elections and those of 2005 and 2011 is the extensive use of social media, especially campaigning via Facebook and Twitter. While adhering to the rules of not posting photos of themselves, Saudi women managed to get the word out, although somewhat limited, about their candidacies.
Once the General Election Committee sorts out some of its more intrusive rules that hinder campaigning and local government makes municipal councils more relevant and transparent to the average Saudi citizen, then we will see voter participation increase. We have only had three elections since 1962. And even though it has been 10 years since we have restarted the practice of casting ballots we are still in the experimentation stage. We are still using training wheels to see how democracy works in Saudi Arabia. It’s especially important for Saudi women that we continue to vote and field candidates for office. The momentum is on our side. To waste this opportunity because we feel our vote won’t matter is to lose sight of the big picture. The primary complaint among voters is that municipal councils are weak. But to improve the infrastructure of our communities, which start with strong councils, we must first make the election process work and ensure that women are part of that process.
By demonstrating that Saudis take a keen interest in how local government works, municipal councils will be forced to respond.
