Bahrain Mirror: The Bahraini House of Representatives approved on Tuesday (February 20th, 2018) a bill to ban members and officials of Al-Wefaq, Wa'ad and Amal societies from running in the upcoming parliamentary elections in November of this year.

The bill provides that a person should be banned from being a parliamentary candidate: if one is sentenced to a felony even if granted special amnesty, sentenced to imprisonment for intentional offenses for more than six months even if granted special amnesty, is an active member of official of political societies, dissolved by a final ruling for committing a serious violation of the provisions of the Constitution of the Kingdom or any of its laws, and one who deliberately harmed or disrupted constitutional or parliamentary life, by ending or leaving parliamentary work or having their membership withdrawn for the same reasons.

The bill was presented by MPs Abdulrahman Boumajid, Khalid Al-Shaer, Mohammed Al-Jowder, Hamad Al-Dosari and Jamal Bouhasan, who said that this proposal aims at allowing the members of the House of Representatives to represent the people as a whole and serve its public interests, since the parliament takes on important legislative and supervisory powers over the work of the executive authority, and represents the Kingdom of Bahrain in many regional and international parliamentary forums.

Arabic Version