Victory for democracy as citizens elect lawmakers

Bahraini men and women yesterday cast their ballots from 8 am to 8 pm to elect 31 lawmakers and 23 municipal councillors. The elected will now join the nine MPs and seven municipal representatives who were elected in the first round on November 24. On the second defining day of the 2018 parliamentary and municipal elections, Justice Minister and head of the Supreme Committee for the Elections Shaikh Khalid bin Ali Al Khalifa led the team of judges to their polling and counting stations at 6 am, two hours before the start of the vote.

Shaikh Khalid was accompanied by Supreme Judicial Council Abdullah bin Hassam Al Buainain and Public Security Chief Tariq Al Hassan. “Great turnout in the first hour of the second round of elections in all polling stations,” Shaikh Khalid posted on his Twitter account. “Increasing the number of tracks for voters in many stations is helping to avoid long queues. All the polling stations were provided with the same number of ballots as in the first round in order to avoid delays.”

The participation percentage in the first round was 67 per cent for parliamentary voters and 70pc for municipal voters. Bahrainis overseas already cast their ballots on Tuesday, November 27 at Bahrain’s embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions around the world. The run-off voting was forced after none of the candidates in the 31 electoral constituencies was able to secure the more than 50 per cent vote required to win. The top two contenders in each of the constituencies ran head-to-head in the runoff voting which confirmed the inexorable emergence of independent candidates.