MPs Back New Vote Scale for Bahrain Chamber Elections

Parliament on Tuesday approved a law that rewrites how many votes each Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry member has in board elections, scrapping the 2020 capital-linked scale and replacing it with a 15-band system, and sending the draft on to the Shura Council for review.

Under the 2020 schedule, a member with undeclared capital held 2 votes; firms with BD 1–19,999 had 4 votes, those on BD 20,000–49,999 had 8, BD 50,000–99,999 had 16, BD 100,000–499,999 had 32, BD 500,000–999,999 had 64, firms on BD 1 million–4.999m had 128, and companies with BD 5m or more carried 256 votes. The new law moves to smaller steps, from 1 vote for undeclared capital up to BD 1,000 through to 15 votes for capital above BD 1bn, with one extra vote at each higher band.

Backers said the change revives the way chamber elections worked before 2012 and gives small and medium firms a fairer share of influence in line with Article 18 of the Constitution. MP Jalal Kadhem told the chamber that ‘since the chamber was founded, a small circle from one spectrum has chaired it’, which he said amounted to one group holding on to national economic decision-making. He argued that around 3 per cent of the largest companies steer the fate of thousands of small and medium enterprises, and said some big firms open inactive ‘small’ records to chase low-value government tenders worth BD 25,000 to BD 50,000, squeezing genuine small traders who, he said, make up more than 80 per cent of the private sector.

Committee chairman Ahmed Al Salloom rejected claims the panel had dragged its feet, and walked MPs through a line of dates from the law’s return to the committee on 7 November, the receipt of replies from ministries on 16 April, an initial vote to reject the draft, then a second round of talks with extra bodies, a new internal proposal on 18 November and a final vote on 23 November before the report went to the full chamber.

The Government, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the chamber and the Bahrain Association of Banks had urged MPs to keep the 2020 law. They argued that voting in an economic body should still track capital because larger investors take on more risk and carry more weight in jobs and output. They also said the current schedule was drawn up in 2020 after joint work between Parliament, the Cabinet and the chamber, and warned that changing the rules every few years can unsettle the business climate.

Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Ghanim Al Buainain reminded MPs that the Cabinet’s role is limited to giving its view in committee, saying the decision lies ‘solely with the legislative authority’. He noted that the committee wrote to the Government on 23 November and that Parliament chose to put the bill on its agenda before the one-week period in the letter had passed, adding that Article 38 of the council’s rules already allows the Government to ask for a one-month return of any draft law if MPs want a new written opinion.

MP Hassan Ibrahim backed the capital-weighted ‘ratio and proportion’ method, calling it more logical than other ideas and saying similar systems are used elsewhere in the Gulf. He said the private sector is the main engine of employment, with more than 40,000 commercial records and roughly 110,000 employees, and argued that frequent shifts in core rules send the wrong signal to investors at a time when many Bahraini business families are moving activity abroad. He also pressed for stronger coordination between Parliament, the ministry and the chamber, noting that a joint committee meant to bridge the gap has met only once or twice in the past three years.