Bahrain Expects Huge Election Turnout
By JIM KRANE
The Associated Press
Friday, November 24, 2006; 2:20 PM
MANAMA, Bahrain — Campaigning has been dirty and divisive ahead of parliamentary elections Saturday in this U.S. Gulf ally: Mobile text messages warn voters that a landmark Shiite Muslim victory would turn Bahrain into a new Iraq and that female candidates will spread immorality.
Shiites, in turn, accuse the Sunni-run government of plotting to rig the ballot against them in the first election where they stand a chance of turning their demographic majority into political power.
Bahrain Expects Huge Election Turnout
By JIM KRANE
The Associated Press
Friday, November 24, 2006; 2:20 PM
MANAMA, Bahrain — Campaigning has been dirty and divisive ahead of parliamentary elections Saturday in this U.S. Gulf ally: Mobile text messages warn voters that a landmark Shiite Muslim victory would turn Bahrain into a new Iraq and that female candidates will spread immorality.
Shiites, in turn, accuse the Sunni-run government of plotting to rig the ballot against them in the first election where they stand a chance of turning their demographic majority into political power.
“Wake up Sunnis!” reads one broadly distributed mobile phone message aimed at government backers. “Don’t be naive or your fate will be like the Iraqi Sunnis who lost their rights and their lives.”
Bahrain, like Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, is run by a Sunni minority that has managed to block the country’s impoverished Shiite majority from power. Shiites are believed to make up about 60 percent of the population.
The vote will be closely watched by neighboring Arab monarchies, concerned about rising Shiite influence. The opposition Shiite and leftist parties boycotted the 2002 elections, the first since the constitution was restored. But now they say they will have a strong showing unless there is fraud.
Turnout is expected to be high in this tiny island nation of 700,000 citizens, electrified by a bewildering array of parties and candidates. The spectrum ranges from hard-line Sunni Islamists _ including a jihadist party whose leader was briefly arrested for suspected ties to al-Qaida _ to groups seeking Western-style social liberties in a country that hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
Some 1,500 opposition backers, mostly Shiites, marched Friday in the capital Manama, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, who has been implicated in an alleged electoral scam.
Recently leaked government documents describe an alleged secret plot to boost the vote for pro-government candidates by procedures that included handing out citizenship to foreigners. The government has denied the plot.
“Step down, Khalifa,” the demonstrators chanted.
Among them was Zahra Moradi, one of 18 women running for seats. “The government wants to show the world that we have democracy and everything is normal,” she said. “But the government doesn’t want real democracy. They want to keep us out.”
The vote will be a landmark for women, who failed to win any seats in the 2002 vote. This year they are guaranteed a seat, since pro-government candidate Latifa al-Gaoud is running uncontested.
She will be the first female legislator in the Gulf. Kuwait allowed women to vote and run for office for the first time in elections held in June. No female candidates won, but a woman was named as a Cabinet member. Saudi Arabia is the only Mideast nation that bars women from voting.
Their participation in Bahrain has sparked a backlash by Islamic conservatives. Women’s campaign posters have been defaced. Anonymous fliers have depicted women candidates drinking wine or smoking waterpipes, liberal activities considered un-Islamic, and mobile phone messages have said they will corrupt girls.
“Fliers said that I encouraged girls to do forbidden things such smoking waterpipes, which I never did in my life,” said Munira Fakhro, a leftist running against an incumbent lawmaker.
With more than 200 candidates vying for the National Assembly’s 40-seat lower house, many races appear to be headed for a second-round runoff, scheduled for Dec. 2. Results are not expected until Sunday. The government has banned foreign election observers from monitoring the vote.
Though the lower house is elected, the 40 members of the upper chamber are appointed by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, who can veto parliamentary legislation. Shiites and opposition members say the system preserves Sunni dominance.
Still, Bahrain has seen a blossoming of social and political freedoms after the dark days of the 1990s, when Shiite unrest brought a bloody police clampdown. In 2002, King Hamad brought back parliamentary elections after a 26-year hiatus. Bahrain’s parliament was elected in 1973 but dissolved in 1975.
© 2006 The Associated Press
