BCCI voter turnout to go up ten-fold this time: Official

Manama : Voter participation in the upcoming Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) elections is expected to increase ten-fold this time as compared to the previous elections, a top official said yesterday.

To cope with the expected increase in the number of voters, the election process has been improved, said Chairperson of the elections committee Jassim Hassan Abdul A’Al said. He was speaking to DT News on the sidelines of a meeting between BCCI officials and the business community at Bait Al Tijjar.

“There are differences as well as similarities in the elections this time when compared to last time. The differences come due to the fact that this year’s elections will be much larger, the number of people expected to come to vote will be more than 10 times when compared to that of the previous times. The procedures have been improved so that we can accommodate this high turnout of voters. We have improved the efficiency, we try to eliminate any delays. The voting will be manual and the counting will be done by machine. There is much more automation involved this time that the previous times,” he said.

He said that an appeals committee has been made to settle grievances. The appeal committee is headed by Sultan Nasser Al Suwaidi, Assistant Counselor and Acting Director of the Directorate of Legislation. Other members include Ali Abdulnabi Marhoon, Director of the Directorate of Companies Control at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Ahmed Hussain Abdulrahman, Chief Operations Officer and Acting Chief Registrar at Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution, Ms. Rabab Abdulnabi Al Oraidh, Lawyer, member of Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Dr. Abdulrahman Rashed Al Khashram, member of Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The committee will receive grievances submitted by candidates who did not win the elections. The committee will make decisions regarding the submitted grievances during the 3 days following the announcing of the elections results. Majority votes are needed for the decisions taken by the appeals committee. The decisions of the appeals committee are final and not subject to appeals except in the designated courthouse.