Opposition fault registration procedure on first application day
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Thursday October 12, 2006
http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Opposition_fault_registration_proce_10122006.html
Budaiya, BahrainThe head of Bahrain’s largest Shiite opposition group on Thursday suggested the registration process for electoral candidates was designed to hurt the opposition’s chances, at the end of the first day for those running to submit their names. The first of five days for submissions saw 111 people, including 11 women, file requests to run in the November parliamentary vote, election committee spokeswoman Ahdeya Ahmad said.
Opposition fault registration procedure on first application day
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Thursday October 12, 2006
http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Opposition_fault_registration_proce_10122006.html
Budaiya, BahrainThe head of Bahrain’s largest Shiite opposition group on Thursday suggested the registration process for electoral candidates was designed to hurt the opposition’s chances, at the end of the first day for those running to submit their names. The first of five days for submissions saw 111 people, including 11 women, file requests to run in the November parliamentary vote, election committee spokeswoman Ahdeya Ahmad said.
Al Wefaqs party secretary general, Sheikh Ali Salman, questioned the reasoning behind officials’ refusal to inform candidates of whether their applications had been approved until registration closed on Tuesday.
“As political groups we have a right to know if the candidate had been approved or not, so we can take corrective steps to replace him in that district before the registration ends,” Sheikh Salman said, as he submitted his own candidacy application in the Northern Governorate centre in Budaiya, north of Manama.
“I can not see the reason behind the delay in this matter that should not take more than a few hours or a day at best to decide on, especially since the voters rolls had already been approved,” he said.
Sheikh Salman expressed concern that the move was an attempt to place hurdles in front of the opposition candidates, to influence the results of the upcoming elections.
“They were pushing for electronic voting and claiming that they achieve a lot, but now they can not even complete a simple and vital process in a reasonable time,” he said.
But Sheikha Monera Al Khalifa, head of the polling and election committee, said the response period was in-line with regulations set for the elections.
“It is the second natural step in the process following this first step, which is presenting of applications,” she said. “The law is clear about that, and it is not an attempt to manipulate the process.”
That position was also supported by the chief supervisor of the parliamentary elections, public prosecutor Wael Rasheed Bouallay.
The November 25 elections will be the second time that Bahrainis will be able to vote to elect half of the 80 National Assembly members, as well as the fully representative municipal councils.
The first parliamentary elections in 2002, which came after more than three decades of disbanding the Bahraini Parliament, were boycotted by four of the opposition groups that refused to recognize the new constitution.
The four parties, some of which had elected representatives in the five municipal councils, said that they will have candidates running in this year’s parliamentary elections.
Islamists MP Sheikh Mohammed Khalid, who will be running for a second term, said he was pleased with the results his group had achieved in the past four years.
“We have established the foundations for the democratic process after the absence of parliament for more than 30 years and I want to continue in building up that foundation,” he said after filing his own application in the same centre as Sheikh Salman.
Sheikh Khalid added that he expected the 2006 elections to be more competitive than the 2002 one, after more parties entered the race.
Female candidate Fatima Ali said that female participation in the upcoming elections was an achievement in itself.
“All the women will be running in strongly contested districts and they face the added difficulty of this being an all-male society and rural one in the most part of it,” she said.
Following the five days of application filing by parliamentary candidates, candidacy applications for those whishing to run for a seat in one of the five municipal councils can be submitted to the committees from October 20th, 2006 until October 24th, 2006.
© 2006 dpa German Press Agency
