11-1-2004

Saudi Arabia – Women Denied Vote in First Saudi Nationwide
Elections; Also Note Restrictions on ID Card and Passport for
Saudi Women

Women have been denied the vote in Saudi Arabia’s
coming elections, Ed O’Loughlin reports from Jeddah.

WHEN Saudi Arabia holds its first nationwide elections, scheduled
to begin on February 10 around the capital, Riyadh, most of
its university graduates will not take part.

Last month the Saudi Government announced that, contrary to
earlier indications, women would not be allowed to vote or
stand for election to municipal councils that are being touted
as the absolute monarchy’s first steps towards representative
government.

The decision comes as a blow to women who – despite holding
more university degrees than their male counterparts – remain
in effect little more than the property of their husbands or
nearest male relative.

For Saudi women, voting is not just about reform
but about basic human freedom. Legally they cannot work,
travel or even get an ID card or passport without the consent
of their male guardian – a category that could even include
a younger brother or son.

Strict dress codes and gender segregation weigh on them far
more than men, and most professions and industries are officially
forbidden to them – they are not even allowed to drive.

Even within the family, their rights as wives and mothers
are eroded by Saudi Arabia’s interpretation of Muslim law,
which restricts their inheritance rights and makes it easy
for men to divorce them or – often much worse in practice –
take up to three more wives.

“In the last few years the debate about women in Saudi Arabia
has exploded,” said one Western diplomat, “and you see articles
now in the Saudi media that would never have appeared four
years ago. But there’s not a lot going on in substance.”

According to the Government’s electoral body, the decision
to exclude women was based on “logistical” grounds, and in
particular the fact that only a small number of women have
taken up their recently acquired right to have identity cards.
(Not only do women need male permission to apply for the cards
but many are reluctant to breach rigid Saudi codes of modesty
by displaying their faces, even in photographs.)

In practice, though, both sides in the debate acknowledge
that the real reason for the change of heart is the Government’s
desire not to provoke the clerics of the hardline Wahabi sect
and the ultra-conservative tribal leaders who are the biggest
powers in the land after the royal family itself.

“The Government wants to let women vote and have more freedom
but the time is not yet right,” said a senior adviser to the
electoral commission.

“Even for men to vote is new and difficult here. We must get
used to elections and then women can vote in the next one” (scheduled
for 2009).

Reformist women have greeted the news with a mixture of frustration
and resignation. “They are blaming it on the women, but they
are the ones who started it,” said Abeer Mishkhas, a reporter
with the liberal English-language Arab News.

“If a woman wants to go and get an ID she needs the permission
of her male guardian. But if she doesn’t have an ID card they
say she can’t vote.

“If a woman doesn’t want to have an ID card because of the
photo, why should that prevent women who do have ID cards from
voting?” said her colleague Maha Akeel. “I think they are going
very slowly at it and trying to weigh all sides points of view,
but you can’t please everybody so it’s a matter of making a
decision and then going ahead with it.

“That’s what they did in the ’60s when Prince Faisal said
that girls should be able to go to school. There was a lot
of resistance then but they just did it, anyway.”

Many women, though, seem to accept the Government’s behind-the-scenes
assurances of its keenness for reform.

“The Government is always ahead of the people,” said Princess
Reem al Faisal, a photo-journalist and member of the Saudi
royal family. “They are trying to compromise. They don’t want
the people up in arms against women voters, so they will start
off by holding elections without them and then appointing them
to the councils afterwards.”

Says Abeer Mishkhas: “You can’t just copy the West and say
it has to be done that way here. It’s not good to lose your
identity and become something else entirely, because then you
end up with nothing.

“We don’t want to be American wannabes. In the big cities
women might alter their dress, but they will still be modest
and cover their hair because this is who we are. It is part
of our identity.”

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