CIVIL societies and non-governmental organisations are gearing up for their role as election monitors.
About 300 observers are expected to register with election authorities after the High Elections Supervisory Committee announced the beginning of the registration of civil society institutions wishing to participate in the monitoring of the elections yesterday.
A total of 42 candidates submitted their papers last night at the four supervisory centres to contest national elections on November 12.
This included 27 contesting for Parliament and 15 for municipal councils.
Overall, the total number of citizens in the race has now reached 502 at the end of the fourth day.
Nomination of candidates contesting for next month’s polls ends tonight and more citizens are expected to apply.
In the 2002 elections, there were 191 parliamentary candidates and 306 municipal candidates making a total of 497. Year 2006 saw a total of 392 candidates, 221 for the Parliament and 171 for the municipal elections. In 2014, there were 264 parliamentary candidates and 153 municipal candidates making a total of 417. The last elections of 2018 saw 292 candidates compete for a seat in the Parliament and 137 in the municipal councils making a total of 429.
Bahrain Jurist Society chairman Abdul Jabbar Al Tayeb told our sister newspaper Akhbar Al Khaleej that his society along with Mabade’a Society for Human Rights, Together for Human Rights Society and Marsad for Human Rights Society are working on forming a civic committee to monitor the 2022 elections.
The committee will comprise a team of more than 180 observers, and each one of the societies will be responsible for monitoring the elections in each governorate.
Bahrain Transparency Society chairman Dr Husain Al Rabeei said that his society will form a special team of its own comprising 100 volunteers to monitor the elections in all constituencies and the public voting centres.
The society has been monitoring the election process since the beginning of compiling the electoral rolls and the registration of candidates which ends today and said that no irregularities had been found.
He said that the society is considering the possibility of issuing a code of conduct document for all candidates to abide by, in line with what it did in the 2018 elections.
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