Preliminary results from the elections to the 40 member Parliament show the Shia al-Wifaq party doing extremely well (16 of its candidates won outright and the other 1 is heading to runoffs). No liberals won, but four are heading to second round elections where they will likely receive support from al-Wifaq against Sunni Islamist opponents. The balance of power in the new Parliament will rest on the results of the second round of elections. Turnout was high (72%), and the elections seem to have gone smoothly despite some complaints about fraud in a few areas. Mahmood's Den, a leading Bahraini blog, is a good place to go for updated results and commentary from a liberal perspective, and also Global Voices Online; the al-Wefaq website (in Arabic) is also worth keeping an eye on.
Just one quick note on how to read these results: on the one hand Islamist parties swept the board, with self-identified Islamists dominating both the Sunni and Shia slates and secular liberals going nowhere, reinforcing the trend virtually everyplace elections are held in the region; on the other hand, it's important to note that the victorious Shia al-Wifaq party was aligned with liberal Shia and Sunni parties and has committed itself to a broad-based reform agenda that has little to do on its face with "rising Iranian influence". More later.
Oh, and one troubling note on the Arab media front. Al-Wifaq is claiming that both al-Hurra and al-Jazeera canceled scheduled live interviews with al-Wifaq leader Shaykh Ali Salman, allegedly under pressure from the Bahraini Information Minister. We'll have to follow up on that story: is it true that both al-Jazeera and the American al-Hurra caved in to official Bahraini pressure to not do live interviews with the victorious opposition leader?
Via BBC: Bahrain's Shia Muslim opposition has won at least 40% of the vote in elections which saw women and liberal candidates fare poorly.
Posted by: Nur al-Cubicle | November 26, 2006 at 05:24 PM