Polls opened in Bahrain on Saturday to elect a new parliament, but absent from the ballot is the country's Shiite-dominated opposition, whose most prominent figures are serving lengthy prison sentences.

Bahrainis vote on Saturday in a parliamentary election from which opposition groups have been barred, in a crackdown on dissent in the small Sunni-led, Western-allied kingdom.

The POMED website published a study by Human Rights First’s Brian Dooley, entitled “No Applause for Bahrain’s Sham Election,” in which he analyzed the Bahraini elections to be held on November 24, 2018.

Bahrain's Al-Wefaq Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Hussein Al-Daihi renewed the call to boycott the elections, stressing that all Bahrainis agree that the upcoming councils "will only bring more pressure and deprivation."

The governmental committee supervising elections had to provide free transportation service for those who would like to head to voting centers to vote amid wide elections boycott.

Head of the Public Prosecution and head of the electoral crimes investigation committee Mhana Al-Shayji said that the Public Prosecution received a complaint from one of the candidates against another one in the same directorate for publishing a footage on his account on social media outlets that included insults against the plaintiff candidate.

The Public Prosecution referred on Wednesday (November 21, 2018) Al-Wefaq former MP Ali Al-Asheeri to trial over charge of “misusing mobile phone” on background of a tweet in which he announced boycotting elections.

Local Akhbar Al-Khaleej newspaper said that the Academic Accreditation Committee affiliated with the Higher Education Council discovered dozens of forged certificates. Among the discovered certificates, there is a holder of a forged certificate who works as an undersecretary in the services ministries.

Bahrain detained and charged five people Wednesday for "obstructing the electoral process", the public prosecution said, ahead of parliamentary polls set for the end of the week.

Bahrainis head to the polls Saturday, but experts have questioned the value of a parliamentary election in which dissolved opposition groups have been banned from taking part.

The Elections Executive Committee announced that voters can cast their ballots on Saturday (November 24), either in the polling stations in their respective constituencies or in the general electoral centers.

Human rights activist Ibtisam Al-Saegh said that she received phone calls from citizens who were threatened by security bodies that summoned them to cancel their housing requests, if they don’t participate in the coming elections.

More than 70 members of Ireland’s Dáil Éireann (TDs) expressed serious concern over Bahrain’s suppression of civil and political society ahead of the Kingdom’s parliamentary elections in a letter to TD Simon Coveney.

Andrea Delmastro, Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, expressed his concerns regarding the restrictive political environment in Bahrain ahead of the upcoming elections for the Council of Representatives of Bahrain’s National Assembly in a letter addressed to Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The elections are due to be held on Saturday 24 November.

The polls for the parliamentary elections organized by the Bahraini authorities in 29 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions have closed in a number of countries around the world, according to the Ministry of Justice.

The Bahraini Minister of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments, Chairman of the Higher Committee for Elections, Khalid bin Ali Al Khalifa, said that the number of voters in the polling stations outside Bahrain reached more than three thousand and 334 until 9 pm on Tuesday (November 20, 2018).

A US team has trained a number of members of the General Department of Criminal Investigation and Evidence in Bahrain on how to investigate a terrorist crime scene. It is expected that members of the FBI's Academy were the ones who gave the training.

The upcoming parliamentary elections in Bahrain, scheduled for November 24, 2018, are occurring in a repressive political environment that is not conducive to free elections, Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) sent a letter to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government on behalf of Bahraini political prisoner Ali Haji, based on a statement Haji had sent to the BIRD earlier this month.

The Executive Committee of the 2018 elections clarified that the elections abroad took place in 29 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions of the Kingdom of Bahrain abroad on Tuesday (November 20, 2018).