Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

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Channel72
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Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35075702
BBC wrote: Saudi Arabia is going to the polls in unprecedented municipal elections in which women can cast a ballot for the first time.

Women are also standing as candidates, another first, despite the conservative kingdom being the only nation where women are not allowed to drive.

A total of 978 women have registered as candidates, alongside 5,938 men.

Female candidates have had to speak behind a partition during campaign appearances or be represented by a man.
Quiz: Life as a woman in Saudi Arabia

About 130,000 women have registered to vote, officials say. That figure still falls well short of male voter registration, which stands at 1.35 million.

Salma al-Rashed was the first woman to register to vote. "It felt really good," she told the BBC. "Change is a big word but the election is the way to make sure we are really represented."

Elections themselves are a rare thing in the Saudi kingdom - Saturday will be only the third time in history that Saudis have gone to the polls.

There were no elections in the 40 years between 1965 and 2005.

The decision to allow women to take part was taken by the late King Abdullah and is seen as a key part of his legacy.
In announcing the reforms, King Abdullah said women in Saudi Arabia "have demonstrated positions that expressed correct opinions and advice".

Before he died in January, he appointed 30 women to the country's top advisory Shura Council.
There are 2,100 council seats available in Saturday's vote. An additional 1,050 seats are appointed with approval from the king.

The results of the elections are expected to be announced later on Saturday.
Well, we didn't get hover boards or flying cars, but in 2015 ... finally, women in Saudi Arabia can actually vote.

At a time when women are being kidnapped, abused, and raped at unprecedented levels due to ISIS and other terror states, this is actually some welcoming news.

Oh wait... it's only stupid "municipal elections". They still have that stupid monarchy thing going at the national level, and the local elections are very likely tightly controlled by the House of Saud. Sigh... well, at least it's a step in the right direction. But it's unlikely women (or men, for that matter) will be voting out the monarchy any time this decade. I also suspect this is one of many token gestures scheduled by the House of Saud to get the West to like, shut up already about all that "human rights" nonsense.

I also wonder how many women will be de facto prohibited from voting by their conservative husbands/family members.
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Re: Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

Post by K. A. Pital »

Nothing in the text of this article implies Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship. Nothing explains that the "municipal elections" usually mean shit in a political system such as this. If it was an article about municipal elections in China, they'd be sure to mention that it is a dictatorship despite China having massively better track record when it comes to gender discrimination.

Basically, this is why I don't read the BBC.
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Re: Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

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K. A. Pital wrote:Nothing in the text of this article implies Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship. If it was an article about municipal elections in China, they'd be sure to mention that it is a dictatorship despite China having massively better track record when it comes to gender discrimination.
IIRC they have had some local level elections in China and I remember it being reported at least as positively as these and probably more so.

And really? You don't think all that stuff about how they're a conservative monarchy and that this is their third election gets the "Saudi Arabia bad" point across enough?
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Re: Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

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K. A. Pital wrote:Nothing in the text of this article implies Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship. Nothing explains that the "municipal elections" usually mean shit in a political system such as this. If it was an article about municipal elections in China, they'd be sure to mention that it is a dictatorship despite China having massively better track record when it comes to gender discrimination.

Basically, this is why I don't read the BBC.
As long as it distracts us from the hundreds of political activists being beheaded for basically no reason, it's all good.
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Re: Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

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Channel72 wrote:
K. A. Pital wrote:Nothing in the text of this article implies Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship. Nothing explains that the "municipal elections" usually mean shit in a political system such as this. If it was an article about municipal elections in China, they'd be sure to mention that it is a dictatorship despite China having massively better track record when it comes to gender discrimination.

Basically, this is why I don't read the BBC.
As long as it distracts us from the hundreds of political activists being beheaded for basically no reason, it's all good.
Even those that manage to avoid execution are in jail at best. Virtually any potential political Islamic moderate in Saudi Arabia is in jail. And yet this is America's ally in the Middle East.
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Re: Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

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K. A. Pital wrote:Nothing in the text of this article implies Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship. Nothing explains that the "municipal elections" usually mean shit in a political system such as this. If it was an article about municipal elections in China, they'd be sure to mention that it is a dictatorship despite China having massively better track record when it comes to gender discrimination.

Basically, this is why I don't read the BBC.
They explicitly say there hadn't been elections in forty years that ended a decade ago. That seems like a pretty strong implication that a country is a dictatorship, or possibly some sort of anarchy, since in a non-dictatorial country most of your elected officials would die of old age during a forty-year term of office.
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Re: Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

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K. A. Pital wrote:Nothing in the text of this article implies Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship. Nothing explains that the "municipal elections" usually mean shit in a political system such as this.
Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock already knows that, and I defy you to name a country where municipal elections don't mean jack shit.
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Re: Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

Post by Adam Reynolds »

Zaune wrote:
K. A. Pital wrote:Nothing in the text of this article implies Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship. Nothing explains that the "municipal elections" usually mean shit in a political system such as this.
Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock already knows that, and I defy you to name a country where municipal elections don't mean jack shit.
The difference of course being that in most nations they also have national elections of some sort. This is being mentioned as if it were a step towards democracy when it really isn't.
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Re: Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

Post by Purple »

Channel72 wrote:
K. A. Pital wrote:Nothing in the text of this article implies Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship. Nothing explains that the "municipal elections" usually mean shit in a political system such as this. If it was an article about municipal elections in China, they'd be sure to mention that it is a dictatorship despite China having massively better track record when it comes to gender discrimination.

Basically, this is why I don't read the BBC.
As long as it distracts us from the hundreds of political activists being beheaded for basically no reason, it's all good.
What do you mean no reason? They are political activists. That is the reason. We might or might not disagree with that being a good reason to kill someone over. But it is the stated reason.
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Re: Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

Post by Thanas »

Zaune wrote:
K. A. Pital wrote:Nothing in the text of this article implies Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship. Nothing explains that the "municipal elections" usually mean shit in a political system such as this.
Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock already knows that, and I defy you to name a country where municipal elections don't mean jack shit.
*raises hand*

Most people don't know about it, but municipal elections matter a lot in our political system, as they control a huge part of our overall national budget.
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Re: Saudi Arabia finally allows women to vote (sort of... in 2015)

Post by Channel72 »

Purple wrote:
Channel72 wrote:
K. A. Pital wrote:Nothing in the text of this article implies Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship. Nothing explains that the "municipal elections" usually mean shit in a political system such as this. If it was an article about municipal elections in China, they'd be sure to mention that it is a dictatorship despite China having massively better track record when it comes to gender discrimination.

Basically, this is why I don't read the BBC.
As long as it distracts us from the hundreds of political activists being beheaded for basically no reason, it's all good.
What do you mean no reason? They are political activists. That is the reason. We might or might not disagree with that being a good reason to kill someone over. But it is the stated reason.
Thanks for clarifying that, Purple.
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