Three MPs Face Ouster Vote Today

Committee Backs Removal Move

TDT | Manama

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

Three MPs moved closer to losing their seats on Monday after Parliament’s Legislative and Legal Affairs Committee recommended approving a request to remove Abdulnabi Salman, Mahdi Al Shuwaikh and Mamdouh Al Saleh.

The request has been signed by 37 of Parliament’s 40 members, meaning every MP apart from the three named in it has supported the move. Speaker Ahmed Al Musallam is among those who signed.

Sources told The Daily Tribune that the three MPs attended Monday’s meeting of the Legislative and Legal Affairs Committee, where they were heard before the committee drafted its final report and sent it to Parliament.

According to the explanatory note attached to the request, the signatories said the three MPs took a position that ran counter to the parliamentary oath and national duty by criticising state action against people accused of praising Iranian attacks on Bahrain.

The note said that action included stripping citizenship from those involved, as well as from others whose nationality was withdrawn as dependants. It argued that the MPs’ remarks cast doubt on the fairness of the state's steps and formed part of their grounds for rejecting the decree-law.

The signatories said the position amounted, in their view, to a breach of national unity, cost the three MPs trust and standing, and breached the duties of membership and the honour of representing citizens.

Those named in the request are First Deputy Speaker Abdulnabi Salman, Services Committee Chairman Mamdouh Al Saleh and Dr Mahdi Al Shuwaikh.

The committee’s report is expected to go to Parliament’s Bureau before being placed on the agenda for today’s sitting, when MPs are expected to decide the matter.

Parliamentary sources said a meeting held earlier on Monday, attended by MPs other than the three named in the request, ended with agreement to move ahead with the removal bid.

The committee is also expected to examine the choice of a new First Deputy Speaker in the event that Abdulnabi Salman’s seat is declared vacant.