Saudi Arabia’s Reform Talk: How Real is It?

Saudi Arabia’s publication of its “Charter for Reform of the Arab Condition” has raised eyebrows at a time when many believe the region to be poised on the verge of dramatic changes in the wake of a probable US-Iraqi war. The “Charter” is a proposal for the Arab League calling for various internally-driven changes in the Arab countries, but what has drawn the most attention, given the fact that Saudi Arabia is the proponent, is the section on internal political reforms, which includes the statement that the Arab countries acknowledge “that internal reform and enhanced political participation in the Arab states are essential steps for the building of Arab capabilities, and for providing the conditions for a comprehensive awakening and development of Arab human resources.” A Saudi-sponsored document calling for internal reform and enhanced political participation?

The “Charter” is not the only indicator of a possible change in Saudi thinking. The existing, appointed, and rather limited in powers Majlis al-Shura or Consultative Council recently rejected an income tax proposal, a rare case of that consultative body taking something like legislative action. A group of reformers are preparing proposals for democratizing reforms within the system, by some accounts beginning with elected councils at the municipality level. This has not yet been officially endorsed but there are reports suggesting that Crown Prince ‘Abdullah favors such limited moves towards greater political participation.

No one thinks Riyadh is about to transform itself into a Washington- or Westminster-style democracy. But parliaments are beginning to proliferate in the Gulf. Kuwait’s was long alone, but now Bahrain has restored Parliament and Qatar is writing a constitution that will lead to a Parliament. Oman has permitted some local electoral role in choosing its Consultative Council. The changes may not impress those who denounce the Gulf monarchies for their conservatism, but changes they are.

This Dossier examines the Saudi Charter and related talk of Saudi political reform.

It used to be said of the Roman Catholic Church’s bureaucracy in the Vatican that its wheels grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small. Change in Saudi Arabia is even slower, and the glacial pace of what limited reforms have occurred often leads critics of the Kingdom to assume that there is no real change other than cosmetic. After more than a decade of a system of appointed consultative assemblies at the national and local levels, but with the Kingdom under unprecedented criticism from some of the neoconservative allies of the US Administration and the growing alarm in Riyadh about the possible repercussions of violent regime change in Iraq, talk of reform is in the air again. It may be a combination of regime self-preservation and defense against external critics at a time of singularly bad press, but there is some reason to believe that some of the more astute senior princes recognize that the regime must open up some role in some aspects of governance to its increasingly sophisticated population.

As with the smaller Gulf states, Saudi Arabia has evolved into a country with an educated population (though the content of that education remains controversial in the West), with considerable affluence (though not as great as was the case a generation ago), but with virtually no political participation, the country’s governance being managed by a paternalistic family rule, with some role for the religious establishment and key tribal allies of the ruling family. In the age of the Internet and the post-industrial global economy, it is a system derived from traditional tribal relationships in a pre-industrial society.

Western critics tend to focus on Saudi Arabia’s limitations on the rights of women and the content of the teaching of some of its religious schools; these are, however, in fact part and parcel of the legacy of political and religious revivalism which produced the historical alliance between the House of Sa‘ud and that puritan branch of Hanbali Islam known to outsiders as Wahhabism (Saudis object to the term).

So far, elections play no role in Saudi life. Only in 1993 did the appointed Majlis al-Shura first sit,and there are local appointed majalis (the plural form) as well. The Council is essentially advisory, but it is not a rubber stamp. On January 12, it rejected draft legislation which would have imposed an income tax for the first time on foreigners working in the Kingdom. Expatriates working in the Kingdom — a significant portion of the work force — would have been subject to a levy of about 10% for all income over 3000 Saudi riyals per year. The Shura Council rejected the plan — 73 of the 120 members voting against the plan — and sent it back to the Finance Ministry for revisions.

The Passage on Internal Reforms from the “Charter for Reform of the Arab Condition” This is the key paragraph from the proposed “Charter” in the translation provided to the Saudi Embassy website by Arab News: The Arab heads of state decide that internal reform and enhanced political participation in the Arab states are essential steps for the building of Arab capabilities, and for providing the conditions for a comprehensive awakening and development of Arab human resources. Internal reform is needed in order to respond to the requirements for positive integration within the field of international competition, to achieve sustainable development, and to deal objectively and realistically with the myriad of novel changes in the economic sphere, especially with the emergence of huge economic blocs, the rise of globalization and what it provides in opportunities and imposes in challenges, and the accelerating development in the technological, communication and information areas. The Arab world shall continue to be an important tributary in the flow of human civilization in all its aspects.That is not, of course, a real Parliamentary system, but it is a case in which an instrument often denounced by critics as an ineffectual rubber stamp did take action to block, at least temporarily, government-sponsored legislation.

The Council has also held debates on issues of some controversy. It had reportedly scheduled a debate on Saudi education policy in August 2001; a great many Saudis are concerned that the fact that the country’s religious-based schooling does not prepare young Saudis for careers in a globalized, technologically-oriented world. The September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, and subsequent examination of the Saudi educational system by Western critics, made such a debate too much of a hot potato politically, and it did not happen. But the Council does debate some issues.

In fact, many observers think they detect a loosening-up of Saudi society in the wake of September 11. Again, the standard of comparison is not a Western democracy, but what has been the norm in Saudi Arabia. A few years ago, dissidents discussing a move towards possibly electing local councils of the national Majlis al-Shura could count on being called in by the police. Today, there is fairly open discussion, even of such things as possible elections, with apparent tolerance from authorities in high places. After a fire in a girls’ school last year led to numerous deaths, because, according to Saudi press reports, religious police would not allow the girls out of the building in their nightclothes, the press was openly critical of the religious police and of the system which imposed such stringent requirements on girls’ schools that it contributed to the deaths. Such press criticism is still rare, but it suggests that there may be a willingness to see a greater criticism of negative aspects of the system so long as the system itself is not challenged. In theory, this could lead ultimately to the kind of vigorous press emerging in the Chinese local media: one can criticize and investigate the bureaucracy and local corruption in China so long as one in no way challenges the Party’s right to sole rule. Saudi Arabia might be prepared, over time, to tolerate criticism like that of the handling of the girls’ school fire, so long as the system itself is not undermined.

However, one should not carry the Chinese model too far. The Communist Party of China does allege that it represents the people, however improbable that claim may seem to outsiders. The House of Sa‘ud has never sought to claim that it rules by popular acclamation, but rather that it is the (presumably benign) paternalistic governor doing the will of God. There is no claim here of vox populi, vox dei; the Ruling Family rules simply as vox dei. Even those within the Saudi Royal Family who favor some liberalization and local elections face much opposition from more conservative senior princes.

It is never exactly clear how opinion divides within the Royal Family. The Saudi hands who have studied the country longest are also usually those who admit they do not know precisely what is on the minds of the key senior princes; neophyte analysts who are quick to categorize the princes into factions often merely reveal how little they know. The old-style Kremlinologists in some ways had an easier task than Saudi-watchers.

A case in point is Crown Prince ‘Abdullah. The man who is in day-to-day charge of Saudi Arabia because of King Fahd’s continuing decline is, by many standards, more “conservative” than Fahd and his full brothers, the so-called “Sudeiris”. ‘Abdullah is more of a traditionalist, less exposed to the West, and closer to the tribes and to the intricacies of tribal politics than the Sudeiri brothers, who include the powerful Defense and Interior Ministers. But ‘Abdullah also seems, by most accounts, more open to some form of liberalization, both in economics and, apparently, in politics; he is far more complicated than many analysts have given him credit for. Whether ‘Abdullah is or is not in favor of political liberalization of some sort, at some pace, he seems to be a realist.

An Openness to Change?
Having just noted that, essentially, those who claim to know what the senior princes are thinking are usually wrong, The Estimate must add the caveat that the analysis here may be equally wrong. No official Saudi statement has openly addressed the question of political reform in the Kingdom. Some senior Saudis have dropped hints or background, unattributable accounts to Western analysts, and the proposed Charter language, quoted on the opposite page, is extremely vague. If such vague phraseology had emerged from any other Arab country it probably would have been ignored, but even the vaguest allusions to political reform coming from the Saudis raises eyebrows.

Many observers believe, however, that ‘Abdullah, and some other Saudis, have been shaken by the sequence of events since September 11, 2001. The fact that most of the hijackers had Saudi nationality was a shock — so much so that for a long time the Kingdom simply denied it — and the chorus of criticism of the Kingdom in the American media, especially the onslaught by neoconservative critics who see Saudi Arabia as a major enabler of hardline jihadi political Islam, has also rattled the leadership.

The country, and the House of Sa‘ud, are profoundly conservative in most senses of the word. Change is seen as threatening. The prospects of a US-Iraqi war appear to have deepened the levels of alarm: a destabilized Iraq, an Iraq splitnering into civil war among its confessional and ethnic groups, or even just an Iraq which is a political vacuum, would naturally lead to concern in Riyadh. But a genuinely democratic Iraq might pose problems as well.

In fact the Saudis have not been immune to the outbreak of parliament fever in the Gulf. In the days when Kuwait was the only Gulf state with an elected Parliament, Saudi Arabia frequently criticized the Kuwaiti experiment. But it has quietly accepted Bahrain’s restoration of a Parliament. (Saudi Arabia’s quarrels with Qatar stem from a variety of sources, including Al-Jazeera television and longstanding dynastic rivalries, more than from Qatar’s flirtation with constitutionalism.)

So what are the prospects for genuine reform in Saudi Arabia? Some observers think the likeliest scenario would be to begin with local elections of municipal majalis, giving them some real legislative responsibility at the provincial or municipal levels, in order to begin to train the Saudi populace in the concept of answerable government. A subsequent step would be to make the Majlis al-Shura elective. Although some optimists have said this might happen within two years, that may be too ambitious unless there is a dramatic destabilization of the region which forces the Saudis to abandon their traditional caution and slow movement.

And there are also intermediate possible steps: making some seats of the Majlis al-Shura elective and others appointive, for example, or creating two houses, one elected and one appointed, like Bahrain. Another mixed approach could be to begin by letting local councils and tribal leaders, rather than the populace at large, make the choice. Or, as in Oman, local voters might choose several candidates and then the central government choose from amont them. But in any event a key point must be kept in mind: the Majlis al-Shura is an advisory body, and even an elected one probably would remain advisory, not a true Parliament.

Of course, no one in official authority Saudi Arabia is yet on the record by name as calling for even these limited attempts at responsive government. But more and more non-official Saudis are calling for such change, and they are not being rounded up by the government; in fact, some petitions are circulating openly. It may be that the government does indeed realize that the post-September 11 challenges facing the Kingdom, combined with the uncertainties that will follow a war the Saudis profoundly hope to avoid, mean that some sort of change is necessary. They may recognize that a country with an educated populace, intent on playing a major economic and political role in a globalized world linked by an information revolution, cannot forever avoid offering at least a minimal degree of political particpation to its people.

However, a few cautions are in order. Saudi society remains profoundly traditional and conservative. Genuinely free elections (not something anyone expects imminently) might very well produce a strongly Islamist council more radical than anyone in the West would like to see. More to the point, the tradition in a tribal society like Saudi Arabia is to emphasize the Arab and Islamic tradition of shura (consultation) and ijma‘, consensus, rather than majority rule. Consultation and consensus are not always easy to apply in a crisis; they may be more useful as participative instrumentalities in a tribal society than in a globalized one. But the Saudi tradition is still to seek consensus rather than to take a poll.

Secondly, some of the current “buzz” about elections may be a public relations effort. There is genuine alarm about what a war with Iraq might mean or lead to. Talk of political change may be a tactic, or it may be a genuine response to concern about likely instability. But one should also remember that before and during the 1991 Gulf War, some Saudi leaders, including even the King, spoke openly about the possibility of eventually instituting a military draft. That came at a time when the country was under fire for depending on US forces for its defense. The war ended, and conscription is no nearer to being instituted in Saudi Arabia today than it was then. But conscription and elections are not necessarily comparable. No country’s population agitates for conscription.

If ‘Abdullah is indeed serious about the possibility of some sort of local or national elections emerging over time in Saudi Arabia — and again, the evidence is pretty sparse, given the necessity of reading so much into so few words — that still does not mean it will happen. Some observers are convinced ‘Abdullah wanted to lift the ban on women driving a few years ago. Certainly there were plenty of rumors (as there are now rumors of elections), and some public statements of ‘Abdullah which indicated that change might indeed be coming, but nothing happened. The importance of consensus within the Royal Family remains critical, and ‘Abdullah is no absolute monarch, but rather something like the Chairman of a contentious Board. He may want changes which he cannot bring about by mere decree, and he may not be able to get them. That could also affect longterm succession issues, so it is worth keeping in mind.

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