Conservative autumn follows the Arab spring as Gulf states prepare for votes

Despite the Arab spring, voting in three Gulf states poses no threat to old guard rulers or their efforts to unite against call for fast-track reforms.

None of the planned elections this month will even slightly loosen the hold of the rulers – the central aim of the street protests that toppled leaders from Tunisia to Egypt and threatened the same in Syria and Yemen.

Yet each of the voting rounds – a stop-gap parliamentary election in violence-battered Bahrain and tightly controlled balloting in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – tells a different story about the upheavals and the chances for change among the region’s wealthiest and most entrenched royal houses and ruling families.

But any movement toward the ballot box takes on greater significance with the election process still unclear in Egypt and Tunisia, and Libya’s new leaders locked in fights with the remnants of Gaddafi’s regime. In Bahrain, the special parliamentary election on Saturday has the most at stake: 18 seats abandoned in a mass resignation by MPs from the country’s Shia majority, who accuse the ruling Sunni dynasty of discrimination such as gerrymandering voting districts to dilute Shia power and blocking promotions to key military or government posts.

A pro-government outcome is almost certain after Shia groups called for a boycott, which will only tighten the grip of the Sunni ruling family.

Across the causeway, Saudi Arabia is making another nod to appeals for change. The planned 29 September voting for municipal councils, however, will bring no cracks in the leadership’s absolute hold on power – or the Saudis’ self-appointed role as the heavyweight force trying to keep the Arab spring from spreading too far.

The election comes after a nearly two-year delay that has angered pro-democracy activists. But even after the vote, the all-male councils – created in the country’s first election in 2005 – will still have little sway over political affairs.

Women, too, remain blocked from voting – which could bring a backlash from women’s groups that have already publicly defied the kingdom’s ban on female driving.

In the UAE, the ruling system has gone into overdrive to promote Saturday’s elections of a federal advisory council as a significant step in its “experiment” to expand the public role in policy making. The government-backed National newspaper in Abu Dhabi called it part of a democratic “learning curve.”

The 40-seat council – half elected, half appointed – still has almost no direct powers, and the UAE’s voters remain hand-picked by rulers according to tribal and regional ties.

Officials claim the council’s influence could grow and the electoral pool has been expanded by nearly 20-fold from the 2006 elections to include more than 129,000 voters – a fraction of the nearly two million Emiratis.

However, in the UAE locals are outnumbered about five to one by foreign workers, from western executives to Asian labourers. All have little stake in domestic politics. And local complaints about democracy are typically far outweighed by the generous state benefits, including well-paid civil servant jobs and subsidised housing.