Something looks different about the Saudi capital. Perhaps it is the presence of random checkpoints and armed guards, a response to a two-year wave of terror attacks. Or maybe it is the sight of giant billboards featuring the faces of aspiring politicians. The election ads are especially unusual, and not only as an exuberant first inkling of democratisation in this absolute autocracy. Before last month, the country's religious police would have considered such publicly displayed images of the human face to be unIslamic "idols" that should be blotted out. They could be right: one candidate reports that a lady who liked his picture has been pestering him to take her on as a second wife.
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