Bahrain's third legislative elections were without incident and confirmed the Shia plurality, but will this be translated into more power, asks Sherine Bahaa In an atmosphere ripe with scepticism, Bahrain's third municipal elections took place last Saturday, giving the tiny nation's 318,000 registered voters out of a population of 1.3 million the chance to vote. The results brought nothing new. The Islamic National Accord Association (INAA), better known as Al-Wefaq, won 18 seats for the Shia in the 40- member Bahraini parliament. INAA secured all the seats its candidates contested in the elections, as the electoral commission announced. It was only the first round of elections, a second is expected to take place next Saturday. In Bahrain political organisations are allowed, but political parties are not. While the number of Al-Wefaq seats is one more than its 17 seats in the 2006 parliament, it fell short of the majority, yet it could still forge alliances with liberal parties and others to eventually gain the upper hand in parliament for a symbolic slap to Bahrain's leaders. Top Shia cleric and MP Sheikh Ali Salman cautiously hailed the results and called for a "more positive" stance from the government. "We really aren't satisfied with the outcome," he said. "We are the majority of the country and a majority of the voters, but we don't get a majority of the [parliament] seats. Why is that? It is clear that the government is doing this to keep us from gaining a bigger voice. We won't be satisfied until the election rules have changed." Thirteen pro-government Sunni candidates won seats, while most of the run-offs will be between pro- government candidates. Nine seats remain up for grabs in a second round of voting on 30 October. The new parliament has just one woman -- a pro-government candidate who ran unopposed. One of the most closely watched run-off races involves another woman: retired Sunni professor, Muneera Fakhro, who is considered a leading independent voice and a potential ally of the Shia bloc. Fakhro failed in her parliament bid in the 2006 elections and has accused authorities of rigging the vote against her. Tiny Bahrain remains the only country in the world where a Shia majority is led by a Sunni minority. Other Arab nations with Shia populations watch Bahrain closely. If Bahrain's sectarian divide gets out of control, it could inflame tensions in other areas where Shia advocate for more rights, such as Saudi Arabia. "If the scale of things escalates in Bahrain, it's going to escalate elsewhere," said Toby Jones, assistant professor of Middle East history at New Jersey's Rutgers University who studies Bahrain. Results of the first round of elections should better be viewed within the framework of political payback. A recent crackdown on Shia put more than 250 people into custody. Some of their top figures were jailed and their trials are expected next week on charges of plotting a coup, enhancing feelings of sectarianism. Shia have been complaining of discrimination for decades. They say that though Sunnis make up one-third of the population, they get the best government jobs and housing, while Shia are barred from high posts in the military and security forces and suffer from higher rates of poverty. Far from the modern glass office buildings of downtown Manama, Shia villages are easily identified by crumbling apartment buildings, now blackened with char marks from tires burned in recent protests. Posters of opposition leaders and graffiti bashing Bahrain's royal family plaster the walls. Shia also accuse the government of trying to change the sectarian balance by giving citizenship to Sunnis from Yemen, Pakistan, Syria and Jordan, a claim the government denies. Tension was everywhere on the day of the elections. Shia say they don't think the government was seeking reconciliation; Sunnis, in turn, accuse Shia of secret loyalty to Iran. At the start of the election campaign, government officials blocked Al-Wefaq's website and banned local news coverage of the arrests. On election day, Shia claim there were voting problems, including hundreds of Shia reportedly blocked from voting. Bahrain's parliament is divided into the lower house of parliament which has the authority to examine and pass legislation proposed by the king or cabinet and also has monitoring powers. An appointed upper chamber, or consultative council, has the power to block legislation coming out of the lower house. A total of 47 polling stations in the country remained crowded with voters throughout the day. Voting for the parliamentary elections was held from 8am to 8pm while for the municipal polls from 8am to 6pm. Voters were tasked with choosing from 127 candidates, eight of them women, to elect the parliament, while the king names the members of the 40- strong upper chamber. But the overall advantage appeared to go to the Sunni rulers because of the relatively high turnout of 67 per cent though Shia participation was strong, said Shadi Hamid, a researcher on Gulf affairs at the Brookings Doha Centre in neighbouring Qatar. "The big winner here is the government," said Hamid. "They have a turnout that is higher than most Western countries and can use it to tell the international community, 'Look, we still have democracy here.'"
