Saudi Arabia Opinion: "Why I Am Boycotting the Elections" (al-Guwaifli)

Saudi Arabia held its first municipal elections in 2005; the second elections, due in 2009, will finally take place this year. Eman al-Guwaifli reacts at Saudi Jeans:

What will happen?

The elections process to choose municipal elections will start on April 23 with voters registration, and it will end by casting ballots on September 23. Starting from this moment, the scenario of this upcoming summer seems very clear.

On April 23, the voters registration will begin, and the numbers will be very low (in 2005, the number of voters in Riyadh was 140,000 Saudi men out of 1.9 million Saudi males living there). The polling stations will be dead empty, and despite this, the Saudi press will continue its coverage, singing praise for the “baby steps of democracy,” justifying that by saying “it fits us,” that it is in line with “the lack of awareness” in our society and the domination of its traditional structure, the ignorance of democratic mechanisms, and the lack of making responsible choices, etc.

Also, the same press will focus on the competition between candidates they will call Islamists, and others they will call liberals, and they will say the competition between the two parties is heated, and that they are electoral blocs being formed in secret, and “golden lists, blessed lists, appeals, joy and battles…” The press will cover the events of the different camps, and the mercenaries will have a golden opportunity: preachers, self-improvement trainers, folk poets, journalists and actors. On September 22, the ballot boxes will open, and it will be a culmination of all the comicality and hollowness in the scene.

There will be local and foreign journalists who will watch what is going on, ready to describe the scene of “elections in Saudi Arabia” using that ridiculous word they usually use when they write about our local stories: “Interesting.” And it becomes even more ridiculous when the scene is not ambiguous or confusing, but rather very obvious and clear. And questions will be asked about the significance of what is going on, “Why?”, and the answer will be imposed by those who shout higher than the rest.

Why?

I wrote this post specifically to answer this question. What is going to happen is clear to me from now. The announcement of the return of the municipal elections was not welcomed on the Internet (see #Intekhab). Some bloggers and writers have announced they will boycott the elections for different reasons, and it seems that this circle will expand to include other social forces and diverse elites. In such a situation, facing a “democratic practice” in a very non-democratic society, it does not seem that a silent boycott is enough.

When a non-democratic society silently boycott the only available democratic practice, it would be easy for many parties to impose their own interpretation of the scene. Inevitably, there would be those who will say the low voters turnout reflects “the Saudi people’s rejection of democracy which they view as bad innovation” as Jihad al-Khazen did recently on BBC. This message will come from religious and semi-official institutions, and its echo will be heard in the local press. I can see from now the international media present like they did on March 11 to film the empty streets, filming the empty polling stations and receiving explanations from local dignitaries who will tell them that the Saudi society “still don’t realize the importance of democracy, is not ready to practice it, and the evidence is what you see…” If this happens, it will a hijacking of scene’s meaning allowed by the silent boycott. That’s why I believe that those who boycott the elections should declare their reasons. When deliberately refrain from casting your vote in the ballot box, you should cast that vote in another place.

Why am I boycotting the elections?

It may seem a bit comical for a woman to write this sentence, because women are not allowed to vote anyway, and some men have announced they will boycott the elections for precisely this reason. But I would boycott the elections even if women were given the right to take part. The problem is more than simply excluding women from elections, it is in the elections themselves.

The municipal elections deserve to be boycotted because it will take place in 2011. The logic of this year is different from the logic of 2005. At the time the talk was about “early signs of democracy,” “moving toward popular participation,” “first step,” and “an experiment.” This talk was acceptable then to some extent. But it is 2011, a year in which the revolutions have shaken the traditional thinking of gradual change. The revolutions have also changed that reluctance about the importance of popular participation to become more prominent in the public conscience as a necessity that no country can function without. In such circumstances, this conscience cannot accept the municipal elections because they are another incarnation of the “gradual change” myth. Moreover, the municipal elections in their current form (only half of the councils is elected) have nothing to do with any form of democracy and popular participation!

The municipal elections deserve to be boycotted because democracy is not a ballot box. Democracy is about conceding power to the people. When the ballot box does not lead to conceding power to people and using this power effectively, then the ballot box does not lead to democracy. The municipal councils had no impact on the lives of people, and the comical manner in which their mandate has been extended for two years shows that they have nothing to do with the power of the people or delegating that power from them. How can an elected councilman gets his power from voters, then keeps to exercise it thanks to a government decision? This is, by the way, why democratic countries hold elections on schedule, because an elected official cannot continue to use his power without the consent of those — the voters — who have given him this power in the first place.

Have you noticed that they are using the same excuses that they have used to exclude women in 2004? The lack of separate polling stations for women, the need to learn from the experience with a promise to take part the next time around, etc. During the past seven years, we have built KAUST and sent 80,000 students to study abroad but somehow we still can’t prepare polling stations for women’s participation. Due to all this comicality and lack of seriousness, the municipal elections deserve to be boycotted.

I believe the elections deserve to be boycotted because they are not serious enough, because they are preposterous, and because their results don’t really affect my life. I boycott the only elections in Saudi Arabia because at this moment and more than anytime before, I want democracy, and the way I see it is through a fully elected parliament with a legislative authority and powers of oversight and accountability. I’m boycott the municipal elections because they mock my dreams.

So…

If you are going to boycott the elections then write (in the blog, Twitter, Facebook) why you are doing that. This is a national duty now.

If you are a Saudi journalist or writer who thinks of writing about the “society that don’t understand the importance of elections,” please reconsider.

If you are a foreign journalist, please don’t believe those will tell you that we are boycotting because “we don’t understand, we are not ready…” Consider my opinion. And whatever you are going to write, please, don’t call the municipal elections “interesting,” please!