{"id":3505,"date":"2011-10-12T17:02:16","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T00:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3505"},"modified":"2011-10-12T17:02:16","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T00:02:16","slug":"elected-government-is-solution-to-impasse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3505","title":{"rendered":"Elected Government is Solution to Impasse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahrain opposition demands elected govt<\/strong>
\n(AFP) \u2013 9 hours ago – October 12,2011<\/p>\n

DUBAI \u2014 Bahraini opposition groups called in a new declaration on Wednesday for an elected government and for ending discrimination against the Shiite majority in order to break the political stalemate.<\/p>\n

In “The Manama Paper”, a document described as Bahrain’s “path to freedom and democracy,” the five groups, including the largest Shiite formation Al-Wefaq, called for restructuring the political system while “preserving the monarchy.”<\/p>\n

“The reality is that Bahrain resembles any non-democratic country; it is a copy of (ousted) Zine El Abidine (bin Ali’s) Tunisia, (deposed Hosni) Mubarak’s Egypt, or (embattled President) Ali Abdullah Saleh’s Yemen,” said the document, presented at a press conference.<\/p>\n

Nearly seven months after a deadly crackdown on a month-long pro-democracy protest, the groups repeated their demand for “an elected government” in the tiny island nation that is ruled by the Al-Khalifa Sunni dynasty.<\/p>\n

King Hamad’s uncle, Prince Khalifa bin Salman, who is widely despised among the Shiites, has been prime minister for 40 years.<\/p>\n

The list of demands also includes “a fair electoral system,” redrawing constituencies to guarantee better representation and “a legislative authority with a single chamber that would have exclusive legislative, regulatory, financial and political authorities.”<\/p>\n

In addition to the elected chamber, the current parliament also has the all-appointed Shura Council, which can override legislation from the lower chamber.<\/p>\n

A chief complaint of the opposition is the naturalisation of foreigners “on political grounds,” suspected as being an attempt to change the demographic balance in favour of the Sunnis.<\/p>\n

The document demanded an end to this policy as well as reversing “all kinds of tribal, sectarian and political discrimination.”<\/p>\n

It also called for a international guarantees for a “genuine dialogue” after the opposition pulled out in July of a high-profile national dialogue called for by King Hamad to discuss reforms in the kingdom.<\/p>\n

“We call upon the international community to support the reformists within the government and the removal of the extremists from the political scene through political means,” the statement added.<\/p>\n

Authorities say 24 people, including four policemen, were killed in a month of unrest. The opposition puts the death toll at 31. …source<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bahrain opposition demands elected govt (AFP) \u2013 9 hours ago – October 12,2011 DUBAI \u2014 Bahraini opposition groups called in a new declaration on Wednesday for an elected government and for ending discrimination against the Shiite majority in order to break the political stalemate. In “The Manama Paper”, a document described as Bahrain’s “path to more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1899],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}