Reform Watch: Saudi

It seems that with the apparant success of the Iraqi elections, the Saudis are starting to feel the heat. I believe that they are scared shitless now, that they know that the jig is up, and that they can no longer pull their opressive shit on their own people any longer. They are starting to get the idea that they better start acting right, or else Bush might make them act right. What the hell am i talking about? Ladies and Gentlemen, soon and for the first time Saudis will have elections and women will get to vote: A top Saudi diplomat and member of the royal family predicted that women will be allowed to vote in future elections, giving women in the strictly segregated Islamic nation a political voice for the first time. The Saudi government has responded to international pressure to democratize the Middle East by promising municipal elections across the country, with the first stage on Feb. 10 in the capital, Riyadh. The elections, in which only men can participate, will be the first since the 1960s, when local polls were held in a few cities. Prince Turki al-Faisal, the country's former intelligence chief and now the Saudi ambassador to Britain, said late Friday that the United States, France, Switzerland and many other countries waited many years after giving men the right to vote before extending that privilege to women. "Since this is our first election, probably we will be better and have women vote the next time around," he said after a dinner on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. Abdulrahman al-Tuwaijri, secretary general of Saudi Arabia's Supreme Economic Council, said the law adopted for the municipal elections "doesn't make any distinction between the voter, between men and women." I call it the "Iraq trickledown effect"!