The New York Times
October 2, 2006
Report Cites Bid by Sunnis in Bahrain to Rig Elections
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
MANAMA, Bahrain, Sept. 29 — Just months before Bahrain is to hold parliamentary and municipal elections, a former government adviser has set off a political firestorm with a report describing what he says is a vast conspiracy to rig the elections, manipulate the country’s sectarian balance and ensure Sunni domination over the country’s majority Shiites.
The scandal, which is being called “Bandargate” after the author of the report, Salah al-Bandar, reaches to the core of this tiny island kingdom’s simmering tensions.
The New York Times
October 2, 2006
Report Cites Bid by Sunnis in Bahrain to Rig Elections
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
MANAMA, Bahrain, Sept. 29 — Just months before Bahrain is to hold parliamentary and municipal elections, a former government adviser has set off a political firestorm with a report describing what he says is a vast conspiracy to rig the elections, manipulate the country’s sectarian balance and ensure Sunni domination over the country’s majority Shiites.
The scandal, which is being called “Bandargate” after the author of the report, Salah al-Bandar, reaches to the core of this tiny island kingdom’s simmering tensions.
The report includes hundreds of pages of supporting material, apparently authentic, including canceled checks, hotel bills, accounting sheets and notes. The material suggests that at the very least, unusual business dealings were occurring between government officials, Mr. Bandar says, and that it may have amounted to an effort to set off ethnic conflict.
“For the first time the evidence is complete, it’s not just allegations,” said Mr. Bandar, speaking by telephone from Britain, where he has lived since his deportation in early September. “The evidence is documents, it is signatures, and there is a blueprint for their plans and their strategy. One can see the way in which the discrimination is institutional now, and it is beyond any imagination.”
In all, Mr. Bandar contends, the documents indicate that $6 million was spent to plant articles in Bahraini newspapers, organize counterdemonstrations when Shiites held protests, set off cellphone text-message campaigns against opposition figures and even support a program to convert Shiites into Sunnis. Government officials have dismissed Mr. Bandar as a disgruntled employee with ulterior motives, insisting that the report is a fabrication.
Bahrain, with a population of about 700,000, including 200,000 expatriates, is a weekend playground for Saudis. The tiny ifsland just off the coast of Saudi Arabia is a regional business hub and in recent years has become a center for Islamic banking.
But long-simmering sectarian divisions erupted almost to the point of civil unrest during the 1990’s. King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, who succeeded his father in 1999, headed off the conflict by promising political changes aimed at turning the country into a constitutional monarchy. But when the effort faltered several years ago, many advocates for the Shiite population stepped up their demands for greater rights and more of a say in a government that they say is skewed to the Sunni minority. Shiite groups boycotted the last elections, in 2002, but were expected to take part in the November elections.
At the same time, more militant Sunni groups, alarmed by a Shiite revival in the Middle East, have begun painting Bahrain as the edge of a “Shiite Crescent,” increasingly susceptible to Iran’s influence. The resulting tensions here have at times boiled over into violent clashes between gangs of young people and security forces.
Mr. Bandar, 52, a Sunni who was born in Sudan and married a Bahraini, was employed as an adviser to the Cabinet Affairs Ministry. He said he began receiving calls in January from other Sunnis inside the government increasingly concerned by what they said was an organized campaign to raise tensions within the government.
Mr. Bandar, who is also the secretary general of a group called the Gulf Center for Democratic Development, said he began investigating the accusations, enlisting the help of accountants and the government whistle-blowers to piece together a picture of a web led by high-ranking government officials.
In early September, he said, he presented a 240-page report to advisers to King Hamad and the prime minister, Sheik Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, as well as to Western embassies and the news media. The report indicates that at the least, payments were made to the news media and other groups to write articles and spread messages. But it contends that the campaign went beyond corruption as a network of officials, religious leaders, government-backed civic groups and even some Jordanian intelligence agents worked to drown out Shiite voices and strengthen Sunnis.
The elections, Mr. Bandar said in the report, were part of a five-year plan to put political control of the country firmly in the hands of a small group of militantly anti-Shiite Sunnis. But he noted in the phone conversation that there was no evidence linking either the king or the prime minister to the scandal. “The strategy of the group is to heighten the tension,” Mr. Bandar said.
Much of the scandal centers around Sheik Ahmed bin Ateyatalla al-Khalifa, chief of the Central Informatics Organization, Bahrain’s version of the Central Intelligence Agency, who also heads the committee that is overseeing the November elections. Most of the checks appear to be drawn on Sheik Ahmed’s personal accounts, and the report includes documents with a detailed accounting of the expenditures.
Shortly after Mr. Bandar issued the report, he said, his contract was terminated. He was taken to the airport, he said, and placed on a flight bound for Britain, where he holds citizenship, his visa canceled when he left. He now stands accused of espionage and of trying to foment a coup and could face charges if he tried to return. He said he was filing his own lawsuit against the government charging wrongful dismissal.
For the most part, the government has remained silent as the scandal has grown. The news media have responded to the accusations that they accepted payments by writing articles critical of Mr. Bandar.
Officials implicated in the report do not dispute the authenticity of the documents in Mr. Bandar’s report, but insist that their actions were not illegal and that his conclusions were wrong. Sheik Ahmed, speaking to reporters in Bahrain, said the report was a fabrication intended to undermine the coming elections and “weaken national unity.”
The canceled checks, he said, were part of normal business dealings outside his official duties. But opposition leaders say even that would be a violation of the Constitution, which bans ministers from having outside business dealings.
“The checks are true, they are there and signed but they depend on people filling the gaps and getting the wrong impression,” said Raed Shams, assistant secretary for cabinet affairs at the Ministry of State, who is described in the report as a major player in the group. “You start creating the whole story in your mind. In the end they are mixing the deck and confusing the issues.”
Bahrain’s predominantly Shiite opposition groups say the report is a smoking gun and have demanded a full investigation. “All of this fits within our own political reading,” said Ibrahim al-Sharif, chairman of the Democratic Action Society. “What he did for us was connect the dots and show the extent of the effort. It’s fair to say everyone is shocked by the result.”
