The tiny Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain held parliamentary elections today amid the repercussions of the “Arab Spring” demonstrations of the late winter and early spring. The 40-seat lower chamber of the Bahraini Parliament is elected by the voters of the kingdom. After the security services with assistance from the militaries of other Gulf states cracked down on the protests, the Al Wefaq bloc of members of Parliament resigned in protest, leaving eighteen seats vacant. Today’s election was to fill 14 of those seats, with four having been filled without opposition.
Bahrain is ruled by a royal family that practices the Sunni version of Islam. The majority of Bahrainis are practitioners of the Shia branch of Islam. The royal family and its supporters are wealthier and hold more powerful positions in the government and business than do the Shias.
Complicating the situation is the fact that the majority of the residents of the kingdom are not citizens. Many Gulf states with low populations have used non-citizens to fill jobs as their economies grew. The Bahraini government has tried to attract Sunni Moslems and non-Moslems over the last several decades. The security services, in particular, have many members that are non-citizens or have emigrated and taken Bahraini citizenship.
187,000 Bahrainis are registered to vote. 55 candidates were running for the fourteen vacant seats in Parliament. AP reports that the Shia political parties have boycotted the vote. The Gulf News is stating that the elections have been determined to have been official with at least 51 percent of the voters turning out.
Elections were last held in October of 2010. The Islamist party Al Wefaq won the largest bloc of seats in Bahrain’s Parliament’s lower chamber. This Shia party took the lead in the protests of 2011 and several of its representatives were arrested and detained by security forces for a time.
The protests lead to a declaration of martial law in March 2011. In mid-March a force from the Gulf Cooperation Council entered the Kingdom to support Bahraini security forces. Most of those troops, about 1,000, came from Saudi Arabia, a Sunni ally. Martial law was lifted June 1.