Candidates in 21 constituencies readying for Thursday's run-off

Islamist candidates and those supported by religious groups have won the majority of seats in the first round of Bahrain's national parliament elections in nearly three decades.

Results at 19 constituencies were decided on Thursday, while the other 21 constituencies will hold a run-off round next Thursday with 42 candidates, including two women, vying for the seats.

Among the winners there are 11 Islamist candidates, seven Sunni and four Shi'ite activists. They have become members of the first Bahraini parliament since 1975 when the government dissolved the National Assembly.

According to Bahrain's election law, a candidate must obtain more than 50 per cent of the votes cast to win a seat.

Where this majority is not obtained in the first round, the top two candidates would go forward to a second round a week later, at which the candidate with the highest number of votes will be declared winner.

In the first round, 166 male and eight female candidates competed for the 37 seats. Three candidates had been declared winners before the elections, because they were running unchallenged. Among them was Dr Salah Ali, president of the Islamic Minbar Society.

Prominent Islamists among the winners are Sheikh Adel Al Mawda, president of the Assalah Society, who won Al Muharraq's fifth constituency, Dr Isa Jassim Al Mutawa in the first constituency in Muharraq also, Sheikh Ali Mattar in the Central region's seventh constituency, former Shura Council member Khalifa Al Dhahrani in the ninth constituency of the Central region.