The voting takes place on Saturday for nine seats where no candidate gained fifty percent of the votes cast in last Saturday’s bye-elections for Bahrain’s Lower House of Parliament. The two candidates with most votes from each of these nine constituencies in last week’s bye-elections will contest against each other.
Bye-elections were called for 18 of the 40 seats in Bahrain’s Lower House of Parliament following the resignation from these seats in February of all the former Al-Wefaq Members of Parliament. Winners for four of these 18 seats were declared uncontested before last Saturday’s elections when five more seats were filled.
“It has been important to hold these bye-elections, so that there will be a full Parliament to pass legislation for reforms agreed in the recent National Dialogue, called by His Majesty King Hamad and held by more than 300 delegates from all sections of Bahraini society,” IAA spokesman, said.
A key recommendation of these delegates in the National Dialogue is that the powers of the elected Lower House of Parliament should be increased. The delegates recommended in particular that the elected Parliament should be granted enhanced scrutiny over the executive branch of government.
A notable feature of the bye-elections has been the largest ever number of women candidates who have put themselves forward as candidates. Nine women entered the contest, and one of these, Sawsan Taqawi, has already won a seat last week, becoming the second woman member of the current Lower House of Parliament. Three more women will be running in Saturday’s runoff elections. Bahrain’s appointed upper house, the Shura Council, has 11 women in the 40-seat chamber.