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| Arabia |
| Shiites keep parliament seats in Bahrain's elections |
| 2010-10-25 |
| [Al Arabiya] Bahrain's embattled Shiite-led opposition held on to all of its parliament seats in weekend elections, according to official results announced Sunday, but fell short of the majority it hoped to win as a show of strength against the island kingdom's Sunni rulers. The Islamic National Accord Association won 18 seats in the 40-member Bahraini parliament in Saturday's poll, the electoral commission announced. The 18 candidates of INAA, which clinched 17 seats at the last poll in 2006, were all elected from a first round, with more than the required 50 percent of votes, commission chairman Abdullah al-Buainain told AFP. Top Shiite holy man and MP Sheikh Ali Salman hailed the results and called for a "more positive" stance from the government. "The most important message for the government is that al-Wefaq (INAA) is the largest political association in Bahrain," said Salman, who is also the head of INAA. "The people's will must be respected and dealt with positively," he said. |
| Posted by:Fred |