Nov 23rd 2006 | MANAMA
From The Economist print edition
But if Bahrainis boycott the vote, change may come in a less welcome way
TOURIST brochures call Bahrain a land of golden smiles. It is true that this tiny island kingdom in the Gulf is a quiet, friendly and mildly prosperous place. But in the run-up to elections seen as a crucial test for democracy in an autocratic region, few smiles are in evidence.
Bahraini natives, who make up two-thirds of the archipelago’s 750,000 residents, have reason to be sceptical of the election on November 25th. When he acceded to the throne in 1999, King Hamad al-Khalifa made himself hugely popular by ending a 25-year-long state of emergency that had seen thousands arbitrarily arrested and hundreds sent into exile. But the reclusive king, said to be pressured by conservatives in his family, then broke a promise to revive earlier rules whereby three-quarters of parliamentary seats were freely elected.
Nov 23rd 2006 | MANAMA
From The Economist print edition
But if Bahrainis boycott the vote, change may come in a less welcome way
TOURIST brochures call Bahrain a land of golden smiles. It is true that this tiny island kingdom in the Gulf is a quiet, friendly and mildly prosperous place. But in the run-up to elections seen as a crucial test for democracy in an autocratic region, few smiles are in evidence.
Bahraini natives, who make up two-thirds of the archipelago’s 750,000 residents, have reason to be sceptical of the election on November 25th. When he acceded to the throne in 1999, King Hamad al-Khalifa made himself hugely popular by ending a 25-year-long state of emergency that had seen thousands arbitrarily arrested and hundreds sent into exile. But the reclusive king, said to be pressured by conservatives in his family, then broke a promise to revive earlier rules whereby three-quarters of parliamentary seats were freely elected.
Instead, he promulgated a constitution that gives equal power to two 40-member legislative houses, only one of them elected. Electoral districting heavily favoured the Sunni Muslim minority, assumed to be more loyal to the Sunni royal family, at the expense of the islands’ large, but relatively underprivileged Shia majority. As a result, nearly half the kingdom’s voters boycotted elections in 2002.
Disillusionment has grown in the interim, and not only because of the unfair rules. The opposition, which includes liberal Sunnis as well as organised Shia groups, charges the royal family with a host of misdemeanours. Most damningly, many Bahrainis believe that elements within the regime have deliberately stoked sectarianism, by fanning Sunni fears of an Iranian-backed Shia lunge for power.
Even so, the main Shia-based opposition party, Al Wifaq, is presenting a platform that largely eschews sectarian griping. Its candidates, among them respected professionals as well as Shia clerics, concentrate on broader social issues such as unemployment, poor government services and corruption. Such grievances are very real. Despite a per head income of close to $20,000, a third of the native Bahraini workforce earns less than $600 a month. Ramshackle Shia villages ringing the main city, Manama, suffer power cuts, leaky sewage and crowded schools.
Other places to find a drink
It is not only the poor who complain. Unlike other Gulf monarchies, Bahrain has little oil. It has thrived instead as a service hub for the finance industry, and as a weekend escape for parched Saudi Arabians. Recent years, however, have seen a slow but perceptible leakage of clients to brighter spots in the region, such as Dubai, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Compared to their sleek and ever-rocketing skylines, Manama’s looks dowdy and jumbled, a result, charge disgruntled businessmen, of bureaucratic complacency, bad planning and stingy spending on infrastructure.
Wifaq’s leader is Ali Salman, a 41-year-old preacher who has spent nearly equal time at seminaries in the Iranian city of Qom and as an exile in London. He inspires intense devotion among religious Shias, but also respect from secular Bahrainis. Despite his clerical training, he cuts an anti-sectarian line. “The problem is not that we are ruled by Sunnis, but that we are ruled by one family,” he insists. Underlining the point, his party has allied with a group of liberal Sunnis. Their main opponents are from the Sunni Islamist groups that dominate parliament.
Yet despite the preponderance of Shias, and widespread Sunni displeasure with incumbent MPs, even Wifaq enthusiasts do not expect to win more than a bare parliamentary majority, which would then be diluted by royal appointments to the upper house. Unfair electoral rules and subtle state promotion of Sunni candidates are not the only reasons. A Shia splinter group that broke away from Wifaq has called for an active boycott.
Mr Salman knows he is gambling prestige in choosing to play by the government’s rules, in the belief that a show of goodwill may be the best way to prompt reforms. But as one of his candidates says, should the relative liberals of Wifaq and its allies fail to deliver change, a Shia uprising could be on the way.
http://economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8326066
