Tojjar, Sharaka in BCCI saddle

Manama : Ten members of the Tojjar 2018 bloc and seven members of the Sharaka bloc won the hotly contested Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) board election, the results of which were announced yesterday. Tojjar emerged the most successful of the four blocs that competed in the election to the 29th board of the BCCI.

Sharaka came a close second in the elections with seven of its members elected. The other blocs, Tawoon and Al Ghad failed to get any of their members elected. The members elected to the 18-member board are: Sameer Nass (9364 votes), Mohammed Farooq Al Moayed  (6209 votes), Basem Al Saei  (6191 votes), Jameel Al Ghana (6033 votes), Aref Hejris   (5950 votes), Waleed Kanoo   (5715 votes), Mohammed Al Kooheji (5778 votes), Khalid Al Zayani    (5274 votes), Ahmed Bin Hindi  (5174 votes), Khalid Najibi  (5174 votes), Batool Dadabai   (5090 votes), Shaikha Hind Al Khalifa   (4917 votes), Abdulhussain Daiwani  (4803 votes), Ahmed Al Saloom  (4671 votes), Sonia Janahi  (4559 votes), Abdulhakeem Al Shemeri  (4418 votes), Ramez Al Awadhi (4370 votes); and Waheeb Al Khaja (4353 votes) 

Winners from Tojjar bloc included Sameer Nass, Basem Al Saei, Jameel Al Ghana,  Aref Hejris, Waleed Kanoo, Mohammed Al Kooheji, Khalid Najibi and Batool Dadabai, Sonia Janahi and Waheeb Al Khaja.

Khalid Al Zayani, Ahmed Bin Hindi, Shaikha Hind Al Khalifa, Abdulhussain Daiwani, Ahmed Al Saloom, Abdulhakeem Al Shemeri and Ramez Al Awadhi are the winners from Sharaka bloc.

Zayed R. Alzayani, Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism congratulated the winners and wished them success.

7003 members cast votes

Of the 32746 members who were eligible to vote, 7003 members cast their votes while 25743 voters were absent. 

Feryal Abdulla Ahmed Nass and Auzair Mohammed Othman Malik were elected as substitute board members. Since they both received an equal number of votes (4135), a draw was held, which resulted in Ms. Nass becoming the first substitute board member.

The election committee stated that elections were fair and transparent.

The elections hall was closed at 10:00 p.m., and the necessary measures to start the votes count were taken.  The votes counting process started at 10:30 p.m. in the presence of all members of the Elections Committee, the representative of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Tourism, and the observers from Bahrain Transparency Society.  

Participation in the elections process reached 21.5 per cent.

“The number of ballot papers taken from the ballot box by the Elections Committee were 6980 ballot papers. 23 ballot papers were discarded,” the committee stated.