Bahrainis, including the Shiite-led opposition, started voting yesterday to elect their second post-reforms parliament, amid allegations of a plot to keep the majority Shiites under-represented.
Polls opened just after 8am, while hundreds of men and women had queued earlier waiting for the opening of ballot boxes.
Some 295,000 voters are entitled to elect 39 MPs in an equivalent number of constituencies. There are a total of 207 candidates, including 17 women.
One seat in the 40-strong chamber has already gone to Latifa al-Qouhoud -- a woman who stood unopposed in her constituency -- making her the first female MP in the kingdom's history.
The Shiite majority, which has faced discrimination in a country ruled by a Sunni dynasty, is out in force to achieve recognition.
But the main Shiite faction has had to ally itself with Sunni liberals and leftists. Like the Shiites, they boycotted the last legislative elections, in 2002, over discontent with reforms introduced by King Hamad.
The Islamic National Accord Association (INAA), which is the major Shiite formation in the kingdom, is fielding 17 candidates, while the leftist National Democratic Action Association has presented six candidates.
Both boycotted the 2002 polls protesting at the split of legislative powers between the parliament and an equally numbered upper chamber appointed by the monarch.
"Bahrain chooses its future today," read the front-page headline of Al-Watan.
But the daily warned that "Bahrain is at a historical junction, at which the country would go [either] to more of progress and reform, or God forbid ... to crises and destruction of social peace."
Bahrain's Shiites were behind anti-government protests which claimed at least 38 lives in the 1990s, as they pressed for the restoration of parliament which was scrapped in 1975.
The outgoing chamber came about following major reforms that included turning Bahrain into a constitutional monarchy.
Some among the opposition are boycotting these elections while those who are participating have cast doubt over the transparency of the ballot. They accuse the government of plotting to maintain a pro-government Sunni domination over the Gulf state.
The government "wants them to vote for the Islamist movement and independents who are counted as pro-government," leftist Sunni candidate Abdulrahman al-Nuaimi told reporters.
Some 2,000 demonstrators on Friday called for a probe into an alleged plot aimed at marginalizing the Shiite majority and demanded the resignation of the long-serving PM Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa.
In a controversial report, a former government consultant, Salah al-Bandar, claimed to have uncovered a secret organization operating within the government to "deprive an essential part of the population of this country of their rights" -- an allusion to Shiites.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS