The candidate applications are in for the 40 constituencies which make up Bahrain last night, and the surprise/non-surprise is that the constituency 6 of the Southern Governate had only one candidate running, and it happened to be the same lady who ran in the Riffa constituency in 2002 against our beloved Deputy Dawg. She took him to the second round, but then the voters there allowed DD to win by a narrow margin.

She somehow changed her residence to the islands of Hawar, those strips of land rich in bird life (it’s supposed to be a natural reserve with even osprey nesting there habitually) and very rich sea life around it too with the dugong making their home in the deep water channels around the islands. But in that constituency there are only 1,000 voters, and I’m not sure if the dugong and the shags are actually counted too, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say she won fair and square. However, before doing that completely, I must confess my confusion that in an election that every single seat is fought and every single constituency fielding at least 2 candidates, how come the political societies didn’t wake up to the fact that Hawar was up for the taking? Weird. Ah, I know, the very credible CIO refused to give the candidates the voter rolls! I smell shenanigans, but I’ll shut up for now for the sake of making history, and the seat went to someone who I hope will be making not only history (she’s the first in Bahrain and the Gulf to go to an elected parliament, of course saying the Gulf here is pretty generous as only Bahrain and Kuwait have elected chambers, but if count Iran in it then they’ve had women in their parliament for a while now, and so does Iraq. Okay, let me rephrase that to the GCC then.)

So she won now, and I am very happy for her as she an able lady, with a host of credentials and experience to make a difference especially in the Financial Affairs Committee as she held a position within the Ministry of Finance prior to her winning the seat by default. The “Ministry of Finance” bit worries me too… with all due respect to the lady, I do hope that she will be impartial to her previous employers when the time comes for her to scrutinize the budget and be partial to questioning her erstwhile masters with courage and alacrity.

Onward we go to the “proper” elections where we await the welcoming of 39 persons into the chamber, and I do sincerely hope that that dickhead Dhahrani doesn’t get in again, but rather than Salman bin Sager there instead. The former proved his complete and utter uselessness not only in the past parliament, but in the full 16 years he has been with the Shura council previously.

Nov 25th, pray what will you give us?

bandargate, democracy, parliament, women