Blue Mass Group

You probably haven’t heard as much about the upcoming elections in Saudi Arabia as you did about elections in some other nearby countries (it was news to me).  But this is a fairly big deal: the elections, which begin next Thursday, are only for municipal authorities, but based on the reports I found they’re still the first country-wide elections ever held in Saudi Arabia, and the first elections of any kind held in decades. Sadly, after early steps by the government left open the possibility that women would be able to vote and maybe even run as candidates, the government’s final decision was that women will be barred.  The official reason given was that there wasn’t time to work out the logistics, but in light of the fact that the elections were rescheduled more than once resulting in a delay of several months (as well as the fact that they’re saying they might not be able to work it out in time for the next elections scheduled for 2009), it seems likely that other forces drove the decision. And in other news from Saudi Arabia, the international counterterrorism conference currently ongoing in Riyadh has delegates from 50 countries, including some [...]