Manama: Bahrain's highest non-official Shiite authority has come under attack from some of its allies who have accused it of not adopting a neutral stand in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
"The Islamic Scholars Council should not dictate how people vote and should allow them to make their own personal choices about the most competent candidates," Al Amal Society head Shaikh Mohammad Ali Al Mahfood said in a press statement. "It looks as if the council has turned into a partisan umbrella for a specific society and this diminishes its authority and confines its influence."
The council, made up of the country's most prominent Shiite leaders, has been urging recalcitrant people not to heed elections boycott calls and to vote for Al Wefaq whom it described as 'The Bloc of the Believers' and for its candidates who are, according to the council, the most competent contenders.
But Al Mahfood, a Shiite leader from the Shirazi group, said that the council was giving a terrible example by directing people on their voting choices.
"We have often blamed the government for appointing 40 members to the bi-cameral parliament, yet we are doing the same thing and hijacking the people's right to make their own choices," he said.
Head of Ahl Al Bait Society Shaikh Abdul Adheem Al Muhtadi said that the imposition of candidates was fracturing ties between people and negatively impacting relations with religious scholars.
