Saudi Arabia has delayed municipal elections in the kingdom by a week to allow for National Day celebrations, the head of the election committee said on Saturday. The world's biggest oil exporter announced in March it would hold the vote, in the first political concession since protests sweeping the region reached the kingdom.
The elections for half the seats in the country's municipal councils will be postponed to September 29 from September 22, Abdul Rahman al-Dahmash told Reuters. "Because of the celebrations people won't be around for voting," he said. Officials did not say why they had originally scheduled the vote so close to National Day, celebrated on September 23 to mark the kingdom's unification by founder King Abdul-Aziz and an army of ultra-conservative followers. Women will not be allowed to vote. Saudi Arabia held elections for half of the seats on municipal councils in 2005 for the first time in more than 40 years.
Another round was due in 2009 but the government announced a delay of two years. Political parties are banned in the conservative Muslim kingdom and there is no elected parliament. The municipal councils, which have little power, are half-filled by appointees of Saudi princes serving as provincial governors. Minority Shias have staged demonstrations in the Eastern Province, where most of Saudi Arabia's oilfields are located, but few Sunnis in major cities answered a Facebook call for protests on March 11.
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