Al-Wefaq: Bahrain elections lack legitimacy, do not represent people

• 

The Deputy Secretary-General of the Bahraini political party Al-Wefaq, Sheikh Hussain Al-Daihi said that "the participation rate in the sham parliamentary elections did not exceed 35%," thanking the Bahraini people for "exposing the falsity of the electoral process despite the threats and intimidation."

"Bahrainis are living under the weight of a stifling political crisis and grave human rights violations, and they are committed to the need for a genuine political process that will lift Bahrain out of tyranny and dictatorship and take it to a democratic system and social justice," Al-Daihi added in a speech on Saturday.

الشيخ الديهي يعلن مجموعة كبيرة من الخروقات والملاحظات على العملية الانتخابيةhttps://t.co/nIG5e4eGts#بصوتك_تطبع #الوفاق #البحرين #Bahrain pic.twitter.com/rUWF7k9hTV

— Alwefaq Society (@ALWEFAQ) November 12, 2022

"The authority should learn from the course of what happened today and take a lesson," he said, explaining that "the people of Bahrain are not naive, and they cannot be deceived by the tricks played by the regime." 

Al-Daihi affirmed that "what happened today will result in a certain council that has lost legitimacy and true representation of the people of Bahrain, and the elections went with only one component, which is the government component." 

"Those who observed today's scene in Bahrain noticed the reluctance to participate in the sham parliamentary elections process, as the very high rate of boycott among the youth group was remarkable," he went on to say.

"The people of Bahrain have proven to be conscious, civilized, and capable of accurate diagnosis," he said, adding that it has a strong will and firm determination, and it "has passed the exam with remarkable success." 

On November 6, Al-Daihi formally announced that his party is boycotting the general elections in Bahrain and explained that the reasons justifying the boycott are diverse but mainly concern the failure to implement a crucial reform, ongoing political repression in the country, and authorizing the zionist entity to meddle with the country's domestic affairs.

He further said that Bahrainis are continuing to pay a heavy price for their freedoms by getting killed, imprisoned, displaced, dishonored, denaturalized, their mosques demolished, their basic rights infringed on, and the list goes on. 

Bahraini cleric Issa Qassem told the people of Bahrain that the elections constitute a test of the populace's awareness, explaining that to elect means opening the door for Bahraini-citizenship-bearing Israelis to vote for parliament members.

Qassem called for tomorrow to be a day of mourning for the Bahraini people, stressing that participating in the election is like signing a document agreeing to make matters worse and signing a normalization agreement.

On Saturday morning, Bahrainis went to the polls to elect a new parliament, where over 330 candidates, including 73 women, took part in the run to compete for the country's House of Deputies 40 seats. Not one of them was found to represent the opposition, as it was banned through the adoption of the Political Isolation Law that prohibits all activists and opponents belonging to the main political parties from running and voting.

Since 2018, the Bahraini authorities have prohibited members of former political opposition parties, not only from running for parliament but also from serving on the boards of directors of civic organizations, under the so-called Political Isolation Law and dissolved the two main opposition groups, namely Al-Wefaq and Waad parties, in 2016 and 2017 respectively, leaving no one else to dispute the autocratic rule of the Kingdom headed by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

Since then, authorities have imprisoned hundreds of opposition figures, including Al-Wefaq's leader Sheikh Ali Salman, denaturalized many, and executed others.