These elections may not produce democracies as understood elsewhere, writes Michael Jansen
The aim of recent elections in Iraq and Saudi Arabia was to create popular legitimacy for regimes under serious challenge. But democracy could fail to meet this challenge.
The January 30th national and provincial polls in Iraq could herald too great a change too soon after the April 2003 fall of the Baathist regime while the countrywide municipal polls launched in Saudi Arabia on February 10th could be too little too late to stabilise the deteriorating situation in the kingdom.
In both countries, the elections were flawed, reducing their legitimacy.
In Iraq, insecurity dictated a less than free and fair electoral process. The vast majority of candidates standing for the 275 seats in the national assembly remained anonymous for fear they would be murdered.
Nevertheless, the temporary Iraqi parliament-cum-constituent assembly chosen by this problematic poll is set to initiate a political revolution in Iraq.
The country was for 14 centuries the heartland of the Muslim empire, where Sunnis were the majority, and for the past 80 years a secular modern state, where Sunnis played a leading role. After ousting the Baathist regime, the US marginalised the Sunnis and promoted anti-Baathist Shias and Kurds, fostering communalism rather than unity and Iraqi nationalism.
Consequently, the emerging Iraq is certain to be dominated by these two communities, at the expense of the Sunnis, thousands of whom have joined the resistance. The US-driven democratic process has also marginalised secularists represented by communist, Arab nationalist and liberal democratic parties.
After the election, spokesmen for the Shias and Kurds made it clear that the new Iraq will not be constituted on the model of the old. Shia clerics speaking for Ayatollah Sistani said that the new constitution should incorporate Islamic law and that clerics should provide political guidance. Kurdish politicians insisted that their autonomy should be guaranteed. Iraq could, therefore, emerge as a federal state where Islamic Sharia is the law of the land and Ayatollah Sistani is the ultimate arbiter of policy.
The Saudi election was not conducted in an climate of insecurity but under a cloud of opposition and intimidation from the deeply conservative clerical establishment which adheres to the 18th century Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. Men only were permitted to vote for half the seats on local councils, the other half of their members being appointed. No political parties took part; candidates campaigned at traditional gatherings in tents rather than popular rallies. State-controlled newspapers refused advertisements from candidates with controversial platforms. Reformists arrested for demanding elections remained in jail.
Crown Prince Abdullah, the kingdom's effective ruler, seeks to use this election to begin creating a popular power base for the monarchy through consultations at ever higher levels, culminating in the election of members to the now-appointed Consultative (Shura) Council.
Although the kingdom has traditionally been run as a partnership between the House of Saud and Wahhabi clerics and tribal leaders, some ultra-orthodox clerics have become sharply critical of the monarchy due to its ties with the US, corruption and mismanagement of the economy.
Since May 2003, militants stirred up by these clerics have carried out a series of bold attacks, leading to the arrest of 600 Islamists and the dismissal of 2,000 clerics. Nevertheless, dissident clerics continue to preach holy war against the US and to call upon young Saudis to go to Iraq to fight the foreign forces.
The absolutist Saudi regime hopes sharing power with the citizenry in a new - for the kingdom - revolutionary political process will diminish the role of the clerics and defeat Islamist militancy.
But Wahhabi ideology is now so deeply planted in the society that it may be impossible to liberalise through democratisation.