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Saudi Arabia: too little, too late
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| 16 October 2003 |
Proposals to introduce a modicum of local democracy in Saudi Arabia have been announced against the backdrop of mounting internal discontent within the Kingdom. JID has asked a leading expert on the Gulf region to analyse the latest developments and to assess whether these will be sufficient to stem the tide of opposition to the House of Saud.
This week's announcement is indeed a very modest proposal. The plan provides for the election of up to half the members of local councils. However, it remains unclear whether voting will be restricted to males and there is no indication that more far-reaching reforms - such as elected national government - are even being considered. Nevertheless, any move in the direction of democracy in the Kingdom is likely to prove an uncertain gamble for very high stakes.
For the first time in the history of the modern Saudi state, the royal government is coming under significant international pressure to reform. Prior to the terrorist attacks against the USA on 11 September 2001 there was little evidence that Washington had any serious interest in putting pressure on the government of King Fahd to democratise or to respect human rights. However, over the past two years there has been unprecedented US criticism of an administration that was once its key ally in the Gulf region.
However, although growing numbers of Saudi citizens are deeply dissatisfied with the present system of royal government, in reality there is very little support for a Western-style democracy which, it is feared, would undermine the country's Sharia code of Islamic law.
Opposition groups in Saudi - and many of the émigré organisations which operate abroad - are not pursuing a vision of Western democracy, but an even more rigid interpretation of Sunni Sharia and the ousting of those sections of the royal family which they regard as having been corrupted by association with the West. These are not the sort of people with whom Washington - or Western human rights campaigners - will be comfortable doing business.
The real danger is that the latest proposals will be interpreted as yet more evidence that the dynasty founded by Ibn Saud is showing signs of weakness. Rather than strengthening the present royal government, local elections may well prove to be the beginning of the end.
The fundamental dilemma facing the West is the risk that reform of the Saudi political system may eventually produce a much more hardline, anti-Western regime. For many US policy-makers, the ongoing legacy of militant political Islam in Iran - and more recently the rise of Shi'a militancy in Iraq - is causing concern that Saudi Arabia may be on the brink of its own Islamic revolution.
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