Manama: The worship places shouldn’t be used as campaign or canvassing tools during the upcoming parliamentary and municipal elections in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
The official spokesperson of Integrity Coalition for Election Observation (Integrity) being the non-governmental organization in charge of observing Bahrain’s 2014 municipal and parliamentary elections, Dr. Ahmed Alkhuzaie highlighted the salient features the meeting convened by the supreme committee in charge of the election’s general supervision with the supervising committee judges to overlook the election process and its outcome.
The meeting resolved that worship places should not be used by or for any purpose but that of bringing people together in the name of God, and not to promote for a certain candidate over the others whether by a fatwa, threatening, or even a undermining and emphasized on the importance of closely monitoring religious speeches to prevent any violation that aims to affect the voters decisions; as well as protecting the religious tribunes and save keep its divine position.
“The encouragement of the supreme committee to the NGO’s to contribute to the national supervision of the election process in order to detect any misuse of the religious channels in the elections, in order to protect all the particulars of the elections and find a fair environment to compete, shall be the top priority of Integrity in addition to supervising other aspects of the elections,” Alkhuzaie, added.
The parliamentary elections are scheduled for November 22nd for which the process of nomination papers has begun on Wednesday October 15th, 2014.
Integrity was founded by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) ; Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society (BHRWS), Bahrain Jurists Society, Karama Human Rights and Bahrain Free Labour Union Federation (Al Hurr). The general coordinator is Faisal Fulad.
The spokesperson is an independent Political Consultant, based in Washington DC, is the Managing Director of Khuzaie Associates LLC, a Political Consultancy Firm.