SAUDI ARABIA: In a bedouin tent pitched beside a busy highway in eastern Riyadh, a gathering of about 100 Saudi men sip tea in front of log fires and discuss a local housing crisis, a lack of playgrounds and how to fight corruption.
They listen as lawyer Zafer al-Yamy unveils his vision of fairer city services and land distribution before squatting on a row of carpets and feasting on camel meat and rice.
Just hours after Iraqis voted in a historic multi-party election, another Arab election has quietly got under way in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, with the start of campaigning for the Riyadh municipal council elections on February 10th.
Modest in scope, the Saudi elections are nevertheless the first countrywide ballot in the birthplace of Islam, which has faced international and domestic pressure to liberalise its absolute monarchy since the attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001, carried out by mainly Saudi hijackers.
"This is a good step towards reform. The world can see that the kingdom is making its citizens partners in decision-making," Mr al-Yamy, who is a candidate in Riyadh, said at the all-male gathering on Sunday night.
At best, the elections will be only a partial reflection of popular will.
Just half of the council seats will be chosen by voters. Women cannot participate and men cannot be bothered, judging by voter registration figures.
Only 149,000 people have signed up in Riyadh, a city of more than four million people - a paltry turnout even after women, members of the armed forces and those under 21 were excluded. Other regions of the huge desert kingdom will vote in March and April.
No one is sure how much authority the councils will wield, but there is no shortage of candidates to fill the posts - more than 1,800 in the Riyadh area alone.
Businessmen, tribal figures and government officials have all launched their campaigns with newspaper advertisements, posters, Internet websites and nightly meetings to make their case.
Some Saudis, less affluent than the country's petro-dollar image suggests, hope that the elections will help address what they see as a deeply-unfair distribution of wealth in the world's biggest oil exporter.
Critics say that the elections are too limited to alleviate public discontent in the kingdom, which is also facing a wave of militant violence linked to the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. - (Reuters)
