Manama: Bahrain’s liberals have a chance to win seats in the next parliamentary elections if they are able to readjust their communication and interaction with the street, a political leader has said.
“Contrary to all claims, the Bahraini street is very receptive to the idea of liberal representatives in the lower chamber,” Ahmad Juma, the head of Al Meethaq Society, said.
“However, liberals need to distance themselves from their elitist speeches and to remedy to their lack of contact with common people,” he said
Islamist societies, both Sunni and Shiites, were able to gather huge support and win in the 2006 elections thanks to their special political speeches and to their charity work, Ahmad, one of Bahrain’s best known liberal writers, said.
The 40-seat lower chamber is overwhelmingly dominated by religious figures whose positions have often resulted in bitter standoffs alongside sectarian lines.
“According to our information, the street is now fed up with the very few achievements reached by the lawmakers who focused more on in-fighting and bickering. The street wants a change in the parliament composition, and the liberals now have a good chance to at least recover what they had in the 2002-2006 parliament,” said Ahmad.
His society has no representative in the lower chamber whose second four-year term ended in May.
The first parliament to be elected in 2002 following a three-decade constitutional hiatus included several liberal figures whose work was generally accepted as satisfactory.
However, most of them either withdrew or were crashed in the 2006 elections dominated by Al Wefaq, the political-religious formation that boycotted the 2002 polls to call for further constitutional changes.
At the parliament, Al Wefaq, with 17 MPs, regularly locked horns with Al Asala and the Islamic Menbar, the other two politico-religious societies represented in the parliament and holding 15 seats, over several issues, often resulting in stalemates.
“The Bahraini street got so fed up with the impasses that many people have been saying that they would not vote in the 2010 elections,” Ahmad said.
“This is wrong and could in fact backfire since it would allow the same societies to have a large number of MPs. Expressing dissatisfaction should be done through the ballots by electing new people who can deliver on their promises,” he said.
“We had a more open parliament in 2002 and we can repeat the feat. The liberals need to have an uncompromising look at how they failed to communicate with the street. This introspection is necessary for all, including our own society. Once they identify what was wrong, they need to proceed to rectify it quickly and decisively, so that they can regain their lost status and move forward to make the required changes and distance the country from the terrible effects of sectarianism,” he said.
