Prior to the wave of unrest that has swept the Middle East in 2011, the United States had
consistently praised Sultan Qaboos bin Sa’id Al Said for gradually opening the political process
in the Sultanate of Oman, an initiative he began in the early 1980s without evident public
pressure. The liberalization allowed Omanis a measure of representation but without significantly
limiting Qaboos’ role as major decision maker. Some Omani human rights activists and civil
society leaders, along with many younger Omanis, were always unsatisfied with the implicit and
explicit limits to political rights and believed the democratization process had stagnated. This
disappointment may have proved deeper and broader than experts believed when protests broke
out in several Omani cities beginning in late February 2011, after the toppling of President Hosni
Mubarak of Egypt. Still, the generally positive Omani views of Qaboos, coupled with economic
and minor additional political reform measures and repression of protest actions, put limits on the
unrest and eventually caused it to subside. Record turnout in the October 15, 2011, elections for
the lower house of Oman’s legislative body suggested the unrest produced a new sense of
activism, although with public recognition that reform will continue to be gradual.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS21534.pdf
consistently praised Sultan Qaboos bin Sa’id Al Said for gradually opening the political process
in the Sultanate of Oman, an initiative he began in the early 1980s without evident public
pressure. The liberalization allowed Omanis a measure of representation but without significantly
limiting Qaboos’ role as major decision maker. Some Omani human rights activists and civil
society leaders, along with many younger Omanis, were always unsatisfied with the implicit and
explicit limits to political rights and believed the democratization process had stagnated. This
disappointment may have proved deeper and broader than experts believed when protests broke
out in several Omani cities beginning in late February 2011, after the toppling of President Hosni
Mubarak of Egypt. Still, the generally positive Omani views of Qaboos, coupled with economic
and minor additional political reform measures and repression of protest actions, put limits on the
unrest and eventually caused it to subside. Record turnout in the October 15, 2011, elections for
the lower house of Oman’s legislative body suggested the unrest produced a new sense of
activism, although with public recognition that reform will continue to be gradual.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS21534.pdf
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