Turnout poor in Saudi Arabia's municipal elections

Final all-male poll in the kingdom fails to attract voters from the 1.2 million eligible out of a population of 27.5 million.

Agence France Presse

September 30, 2011

RIYADH // A low turnout of Saudi men voted in municipal elections yesterday, the last all-male polls in the kingdom.

King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud this week gave women the right to participate in 2015.

Some 5,324 candidates competed for 1,056 seats in only the second elections in Saudi history, to fill half the seats in the country's 285 councils. The other half are appointed by the government.

The first elections in the kingdom, which has a population of 27.5 million, including 19 million Saudis, were held in 2005.

The government extended the existing council's term for two years.

About 1.2 million male voters registered to take part but the polls attracted little interest.

Just a few voters had shown up before midday at a polling station in Al Olaya neighbourhood in central Riyadh, an AFP correspondent reported.

"The movement is slow before noon. People are still asleep because it is a day off," said candidate Abdulwahab Al Maliki.

At another voting centre at Al Farazdaq primary school, election supervisors waited for voters but very few turned up.

"I am confused. I don't know who I should vote for. Candidates have used Facebook to communicate with us. I prefer direct contact," said Mohammed Abdullah. "I don't think I will give my vote to any of them."

Voting was also slow in the economic capital, Jeddah. "I voted for a colleague of mine," said retired teacher Ibrahim Ghazi, adding that he "didn't check any of the manifestos of the candidates and I didn't know other names".

The results of the vote are expected on Sunday.

Yesterday's polling comes just four days after King Abdullah granted women the right to vote and run in the next municipal elections in four years, a historic first for the conservative country.

Women's rights activists had long fought for the right to vote in Saudi Arabia, which bars women from driving or travelling without the consent of a male guardian.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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