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One Member (So to Speak), One Vote - Part 2 of 2
Last time, we saw how only cynics could dismiss the "Dawn of Democracy" in Saudi Arabia. Now, we go deeper into the fledgling world of Saudi Arabian democracy!
Enthusiastic pro-democracy activists demonstrated violently in their bedrooms over the weekend, demanding that control of street lighting be passed to the municipal council. In a conciliatory move, Crown Prince Abdullah showed his canniness as a great leader and met the grasping activists half way, granting the municipal council control over the street lighting during daylight hours.
"They may clean and maintain our glorious street lights when the sun is in the sky," he said in a statement read by his personal shopper.
Reacting to criticisms that women have not been allowed to vote, Crown Prince Abdullah admitted that there had been "technical difficulties" at the polling stations. "Listen, it is perfectly natural for us to have teething troubles with our new, imaginative system of democracy. We must be allowed to develop our own, Saudi style of democracy."
Being no stranger to speaking the truth, he did not deny that the electoral process may seem a little strange to Western observers, but they were merely the product of the fertile Saudi mind trying to overcome a serious problem.
"The idea came to me late at night, like all of my best ideas. I groped and tossed with this problem for what seemed like minutes, but was, I am told, seconds: How can we prevent scoundrels voting twice or even thrice? Then it came, suddenly!"
What came was forth was an ingenious system of voting which almost guarantees the prevention of multiple voting. Crown Prince Abdullah is proud of his system and shrouds it in publicity: "The procedure for electing a member is simple. One enters the privacy of the voting cubical and inserts one's member in the glory hole of democracy, shouting the name of your chosen candidate to the 'boy of freedom,' who then stamps your member. This ensures that you only vote once. Nobody I know has two!"
So, the march of democracy continues across proud Arabia; different, it is true - would we expect it to be the same as in the West? - but it still sticks to that age old principle: One member, one vote.
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