Work, work, work. In the meantime, though, the third round of municipals are starting up in Saudi Arabia.
JEDDAH, 21 April 2005 ???????? The business city of Jeddah will go to the polls today with the rest of the Western Region to elect new municipal councils in Saudi Arabia????????s historic democratic exercise.
As many as 548 candidates are contesting for seven Jeddah seats, pinning their hopes on some 80,000 registered voters.
Saudis in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah as well as Taif, Qasim, Hail, Tabuk, Al-Jouf and the Northern Border Region also go to polls today in the third and final phase of elections, which began in the Central Region on Feb. 10.
Jeddah mayor and chief election officer Adel Faqeeh yesterday called upon all registered voters to head to polling stations to cast their ballots.
???????Casting of vote not only reflects the awareness of the voter but also emphasizes the success of the election experiment in the Kingdom,??????? the Saudi Press Agency quoted the mayor as saying.
He said all preparations have been completed for the election in Jeddah and nearby governorates of Rabigh, Khalees, Kamil, Qunfuda and Laith. ???????Arrangements have been made to help voters cast their ballots quickly without causing congestion,??????? he added.
The elections, considered one of the major political reforms, are meant to fill half the seats of 178 municipal councils across the country. The government will appoint the remaining members.
Saudi women have been excluded from the ballot this time but authorities have promised that they would take part in the next elections scheduled for 2009. They cited technical and administrative problems for the current ban.
A total of 244 seats are up for grabs in today????????s elections. In all, more than 4,600 candidates are courting the votes of some 333,000 Saudi men aged over 21 who have registered to cast their ballots, according to official estimates.
Election authorities, meanwhile, rejected a complaint lodged by 21 candidates against seven contestants that they had illegally won the endorsement of popular religious scholars in the country.
???????We did not find evidence that the seven candidates violated election rules,??????? said Omar Al-Khuli, one of three legal experts charged with ruling on election disputes in Jeddah. The seven are running separately in the seven constituencies of the city, but they have been dubbed the ???????golden list??????? after prominent religious scholars such as Sheikh Safar Al-Hawali ???????vouched for them??????? via Internet statements and other channels.
???????They did not present solid evidence that the seven formed a coalition. Endorsement per se does not constitute a violation,??????? Khuli said. ???????All the seven have totally denied that there was any sort of support or coordination among them in their election programs or campaigns,??????? an official statement issued by the panel said.
???????It????????s good that there is an impartial mechanism for people to lodge complaints. This is healthy,??????? commented Abdul Rahman Yamani, one of the seven candidates whose candidacy was challenged by rivals.
I asked John Burgess what he thought would happen during this round. Here’s his response.
I think we can expect pretty much what resulted from the first two stages of the elections, in the Central and Eastern parts of the country: a new group of people taking on civic responsibilities.
Those responsibilities are not yet well-defined and the elected council members will sort themselves out into competent and incompetent groups.
As the is only the first step toward representative government, though, that????????s not a bad thing. People learn from mistakes better than they learn from unreflective success. As a step along a path that will lead to fully representative government, I think it????????s a great thing.
I’m sure he’ll have more on this as things get underway, so check out Crossroads Arabia.