The $2 Trillion Project to Get Saudi Arabia’s Economy Off Oil

Re:The $2 Trillion Project to Get Saudi Arabia’s Economy Off... by Qwertious on Thursday April 21, 2016 @10:07AM (#11542218)

Well fundamentally, its main reason for backwards laws (e.g. non-equality for women) is that the House of Saud derives its legitimacy from a rather orthodox religious sect, in exchange for enforcing said orthodox sect's backwards religious rules.

Switching to a democracy would mean nobody need pander to the Wahhabi sect.

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Re:The $2 Trillion Project to Get Saudi Arabia’s Economy Off... by PKop on Thursday April 21, 2016 @10:52AM (#11542567)

That assumes the people wouldn't vote for an orthodox religious government. I'm almost certain, for quite a while, they would.

See: http://clarionproject.org/analysis/islamists-using-democracy...

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Re:The $2 Trillion Project to Get Saudi Arabia’s Economy Off... by tomp on Thursday April 21, 2016 @11:23AM (#11542820)

Sure. That's exactly what happened in e.g. Egypt /s it didn't.

We have to face the reality here; if the "religious sect" is so powerful that it can challenge the absulotist monarch, then it's definitely powerful enough to play divide-and-conquer with different democratic parties.

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