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Bahrain king reassures Shia clergy over polls
MANAMA - Bahrain’s Sunni ruler King Hamad has reassured the spiritual leadership of the Gulf state’s Shia majority that there will be no attempt to rig next month’s parliamentary elections, a report said on Tuesday.
Clean as East Saint Louis.
The Council of Muslim Scholars had sought Sunday’s meeting with the king following charges by a Briton, since expelled as an alleged spy, that a Sunni clique within the government was plotting to maintain the minority sect’s domination of the archipelago, the Al-Wasat daily said.

“The clergy asked the king during Sunday’s meeting for practical assurances concerning the affair that has exercised public opinion recently,” the council’s chairman Sheikh Issa Qassem told the paper in allusion to the accusations made by Salah al-Bandar. “The clergy are looking for practical, concrete measures. We told the king that we will not tolerate discrimination whether against Sunnis or against Shias,” Qassem said.
And there won't be: all the ballots favoring someone other than the king's men will be discarded regardless of religion.
“The meeting was positive from the point of view of the promises that we secured,” he added.

After Sunday’s meeting with the king, the clergy called on the community to turn out on November 25. “Despite all the political and security crises and all the disappointments, the Council of Muslim Scholars believes that taking part in the elections is the best choice to counter this situation with all its complications,” a statement said Monday.
Posted by: Steve White 2006-10-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=168330