Poor turnout reported in Saudi local elections

Saudi men were voting in municipal elections on Thursday, with a poor turnout in the last all-male polls in the kingdom after King Abdullah this week gave women the right to participate in four years’ time. Some 5,324 candidates are competing for 1,056 seats — in only the second elections in Saudi Arabian history — to fill half the seats in the country’s 285 councils. The other half are appointed by the government. The first elections in the kingdom, which has a population of around 27.5 million, including around 19 million Saudis, were held in 2005, but the government extended the existing council’s term for two years. Around 1.2 million male voters have registered to take part. The results of the vote are expected on Sunday. But the polls appeared to attract little interest on the first day of the Saudi weekend on Thursday and Friday. Just a few voters had shown up before midday at a polling station in Al Olaya neighbourhood in central Riyadh, a media correspondent reported. “The movement is slow before noon. People are still asleep because it is a day off,” said candidate Abdulwahab Al Maliki. At another voting centre at Al Farazdaq primary school election supervisors waited for voters, but very few turned up. “I am confused. I don’t who I should vote for. Candidates have used Facebook to communicate with us. I prefer direct contact,” lamented Mohammed Abdullah, saying: “I don’t think I will give my vote to any of them.” Voting was also slow in the country’s economic capital, the port city of Jeddah on the west coast. “I voted for a colleague of mine,” said retired teacher Ibrahim Ghazi, adding that he “didn’t check any of the manifestos of the candidates and didn’t know other names.” Thursday’s polling comes just four days after King Abdullah granted women the right to vote and run in the next municipal elections in four years. In addition to women participating in the only public polls in the country, King Abdullah also announced he had decided to admit women to the Shura Council, an all-appointed consultative body. The king’s move was hailed by the United States and Britain, with both calling it a significant “step forward.”