I'd think the Shi'a lists would have trouble finding a spot on the ballot!
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| Arabia |
| Sectarian lists circulate for second round of Saudi polls |
| 2005-03-03 |
| Election tickets drawn along sectarian lines are being circulated in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province as men there prepare to vote Thursday in the second round of landmark municipal elections. The oil-rich region is home to most of Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority, estimated at more than 10 percent of the predominantly Sunni population, and that adds a different dimension to Thursday's stage of the electoral process. "Do not be lazy ... Vote for the religious and moral," says a ticket for seven Sunni candidates endorsed by a number of local Sunni clerics, and being distributed in the city of Dammam. "Do not give the opportunity to (your) enemies, who are full of spite against your religion and homeland, those who spread depravation," says the pamphlet, in an apparent reference to Shiites. Election lists are banned in the country's first-ever municipal polls. Shiites, nevertheless, also have their own six-member ticket, which is reportedly accepted by the majority of their community in Dammam, estimated at over 20 percent of its voters. Some 200,000 registered voters in the region, which stretches from the northern borders with Kuwait to the vast Empty Quarter in the south, will elect members to fill half the councils across the province, where some 692 candidates are running for 58 seats. Around 47,000 voters have registered in the mainly Shiite Al-Qatif region to elect five members to the council, while over 41,000 signed up to cast their vote in the Dammam constituency. Seven seats in the 14-member council of Dammam, which also includes the towns of Al-Khobar and Al-Dhahran, are to be filled through Thursday's ballot. Around 61,000 voters also registered in the town of Al-Ahsa, whose population is believed to be divided equally between Shiites and Sunnis. The percentage of registered voters out of the total number of eligible voters has not been disclosed. "Shiites are naturally participating in the election, being citizens and part of this society," said leading Shiite cleric Hassan al-Nimer, claiming his community preferred not to be sectarian in dealing with the new step toward democracy. "We made desperate attempts to build bridges (with Sunnis) but, only yesterday, a (Sunni) cleric lecturing in a campaign center cursed the Shiites publicly," Nimer said. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2
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| Posted by: BigEd 2005-03-03 12:15:20 PM |
| #1 right--and the dwarfs will run oz |
| Posted by: SON OF TOLUI 2005-03-03 2:45:56 AM |