Saudi Govt Shakeup

Taken from kuwaitpost.com
RIYADH: Saudis yesterday cheered King Abdullah's sweeping government shakeup as a bold step forward, a day after he sacked two powerful conservative religious figures and named the country's first-ever woman minister. "Bold reform," Al-Hayat newspaper said in its headline, while the Saudi Gazette heralded the shakeup as a "boost for reform" in the Muslim kingdom. "Everything is fantastic. This is what we have been fighting for," said Ibrahim Mugaiteeb, leader of the Human Rights First Society, who has done
battle with successive governments over rights violations.

On Saturday, Abdullah announced the first major government shakeup since he became king in August 2005, naming four new ministers, changing a number of top judiciary chiefs and shaking up the Ulema Council, the leading clerics whose interpretations of Islamic rules underpin daily life in the kingdom. The king also named 79 new members to the consultative Shura Council, Al-Hayat said.

In major changes that appeared to target the ultraconservative clerics who have dominated the judiciary, he replaced Supreme Judicial Council head Sheikh Saleh Al-Luhaidan, who Saudi activists say had blocked reforms for years. And he replaced the head of the Muttawa religious police, Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith, who had led an aggressive campaign in the media for a strict enforcement of Islamic mores, challenging other more liberal figures in the government. "The Saudi government reshuffle announced yesterda
y is not just a changing of the guard," the Arab News said in its editorial. "It is a clear sign of a major transformation in the kingdom.

Few were ready to predict just what changes on the ground could come from the king's moves. Battles over public morality and women in senior jobs have been brewing for years, and the challenges to the Islamic conservatives have grown in recent months. Women's groups have demanded more rights and the breaking down of barriers that limit their career opportunities; the public has clamoured for movies to be shown in cinemas, banned for 30 years; and rights groups have accused Islamic judges of harsh and incon
sistent judgements. And last week Princess Amira Al-Taweel, the wife of Saudi tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, complained publicly that while she can drive anywhere else in the world, she cannot take the wheel of a car in her own country, because women are banned from driving.

But the symbolism of the king's changes is bound to have an impact. The most symbolic was the naming of veteran educationalist Norah Al-Fayez as deputy education minister for women - the most senior job ever granted a woman in the Muslim kingdom. "She is one of the leading ladies of the country," Mohammad Al-Zulfa, outgoing member of the Shura Council, told AFP.

Al-Fayez put a crack in the thick glass ceiling that the country's strict version of Islam sets against her gender. "This is a successful step. We've always suffered from having a man occupy the position" overseeing women's education, the English-language Arab News newspaper quoted her as saying. "A woman knows what problems and challenges her peers face. It's a change for the better," she said.

Leading Saudi women's rights activist and academic Hatoon Al-Fassi said that she was very happy about Fayez's appointment although this step was not enough. "One woman is not enough, what will one woman do alone in a crowd of men," Fassi told AFP. "Her decisions will not be effective or tangible, but it is a step in the right direction.

Saudi Arabia's dominant Wahhabi school of Islam imposes a strict separation of unrelated members of the opposite sexes, forces women to be shrouded in black from head to toe, bans them from driving, and keeps them dependent on male guardians when travelling outside the home. Together such policies have hampered the promotion of women to top jobs in the kingdom where offices and businesses such as banks are required to have completely separate facilities for female workers.

Saudi women heavily campaigned in 2005 to be allowed to vote in the country's first-ever municipal elections, but their hopes were thwarted. So Fayez's appointment to the job, on the doorstep of the king's powerful Council of Ministers, is widely seen as a major breakthrough. The move shows the 84-year-old king's intention to move toward naming more women to high leadership positions in the future, Fayez said, according to local media reports. Fayez described her appointment as "a source of pride for all w
omen".

The 52-year-old graduated in sociology from King Saud University in 1978 and earned a master's degree in education from Utah State University in the United States in 1982. She then worked in the education ministry, specialising in women's education, and administered private schools before moving to the country's Institute of Public Administration in 1993. Fayez is married with five children, three boys and two girls.

Other women called her appointment a landmark step forward in the kingdom. "We believe that this is an occasion to push a number of recommendations to begin empowering women," legal expert Nawal Al-Mazem told Al-Riyadh newspaper. "This decision shows the direction toward allowing Saudi women to work in high positions in the government," another legal consultant, Asmaa Al-Ghanim, told Al-Riyadh newspaper. "More Saudi women taking ministerial jobs in the future cannot be ruled out," she said.

Even so, the move for women did not go as far as some expected. In January, Saudi media had reported that the new members of the Shura Council would include six women, who have not been represented on the council in the past. But none were present on the new list, making it likely that no women will be included in the consultative body before 2013, the next time appointments are expected.

More fundamental were the changes to the country's religious leadership, who dominate thinking in education, justice and social life. The removal of Luhaidan, who embarrassed the government last September when he said that the owners of satellite television channels airing "immoral" broadcasts should be killed, is believed likely to open more doors for reform.

The same is believed of Abdullah's shakeup of the Ulema council. He named a number of new members, and for the first time ever included representatives of all four Sunni schools of religious law. Previously only the Hanbali school, the ultraconservative one which dominates the Saudi version of Islam, was represented on the council.

Zulfa said the king's shakeup will bring "a new, different mentality" to government. Key to making sure the changes stick will be the king's most powerful adjutants, who remain in place in jobs they have held for decades, analysts say. These include his half-brothers Interior Minister Prince Nayef, Defence Minister Crown Prince Sultan, Foreign Minister Prince Saud and Riyadh Governor Prince Salman.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's new central bank governor is set to keep the oil exporter's dollar-pegged monetary policy intact as he faces the end of the third oil boom and a harsh global economic crisis, analysts said yesterday. The world's top oil exporter named Muhammad Al-Jasser governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) on Saturday. Hamad Saud Al-Sayyari asked to step down after 26 years at the helm of the Gulf's most influential central bank.

Jasser, who holds a PhD in economics and represented the kingdom at the International Monetary Fund, will likely uphold strategies such as a near 23-year policy of linking the riyal to the US dollar and investing in low-risk foreign assets. "I don't think you will see a sea change in current monetary policy," said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at SABB bank, HSBC's Saudi affiliate.

He is a believer at the moment that the peg serves a very important purpose and it is to its advantage. I think SAMA will hold its position on currency policy, on being a proponent of the common Gulf currency and allocating foreign assets in a very conservative manner." After joining SAMA as vice governor in 1995, Jasser, 54, helped devise the bank's reaction to this decade's oil price rally, an onslaught of currency speculation in 2007 and, most recently, its reaction to an oil price slump and credit cri
sis.

In 2007, as the dollar hit repeated record lows against the euro, currency speculators piled into Gulf Arab currencies on expectations that they could follow Kuwait's lead and sever their dollar pegs to fight decades-high inflation. The currency bets drove the Saudi riyal to its strongest level in the peg's history. But like Sayyari, Jasser stood steadfastly by the peg, saying at the height of speculation last February that the peg served Saudi interests. "The view is that Jasser played a central role in t
he good management of the liquidity boom and now you haven't got the same problems in Saudi Arabia as you have in other Gulf countries, like the UAE," said Monica Malik, regional economist at EFG-Hermes.

Inflation in Saudi Arabia, home to about 25 million people, hit an at least 30-year peak above 11 percent in mid-2008, raising pressure for currency reform as the peg forced the state to shadow US interest rate cuts despite the price pressures. More so than its neighbours, Saudi Arabia tightened lending curbs by raising reserve requirements to put controls on credit growth as the kingdom invested oil wealth into diversifying its economy away from a reliance on oil export revenues.

Since rallying to a record high above $147 a barrel last July, oil prices have tumbled to just above a quarter of that level, dimming the prospects for growth across the world's biggest oil-exporting region. But the kingdom was not stung as badly as other states because its key investor in foreign assets, SAMA, sustained a policy of "very liquid, very safe, minimal risk" international assets, Jasser said last November.

In response to tight credit conditions late last year, SAMA shifted its strategy from fighting inflation to stimulating the banking system with interest rate cuts, reserve requirement reductions and by pouring liquidity into the banking system. "Jasser has been groomed for this position for some time," said one Saudi-based analyst, who declined to be identified. "I don't foresee any change in policy at all. He has been at the heart of decision making so this is not a surprise change.

But the new governor's approach to the outside world could mean a change for the better, they added. Regional economists and currency traders described Jasser as a seasoned economist who is more outgoing than Sayyari, who retires at 68 after acting as governor for a longer period than his four predecessors. Jasser holds a Doctorate of Economics from the University of California and was executive director for Saudi Arabia at the IMF from 1990 to 1995. "He is a very strong character," Sfakianakis said. "In t
hat way, you will see some change in how SAMA deals with the outside world. He is very captivating, very eloquent." - Agencies