Polling stations across Bahrain opened yesterday for parliamentary and municipal elections, although the main Shi'ite opposition group is boycotting the vote.
A total of 419 candidates are running, 266 for parliamentary seats and 153 in municipal council elections.
But the elections are not expected to resolve political turmoil in the kingdom, where the Sunni Muslim al-Khalifa family rules over a population that is mostly Shi'ite Muslim.
Bahrain has been shaken by low-level unrest since Shi'ite protesters took to the streets in February 2011 asking for greater democracy.
Reconciliation talks between the al-Khalifa family and the opposition were revived early this year, but later appeared to stall following the prosecution of opposition officials on a variety of charges.
Al Wefaq, the main opposition in Bahrain, is boycotting the elections along with three other groups.
Al Wefaq has said it will not take part in the poll because parliament would not have enough power and because voting districts favour the kingdom's Sunni Muslims.
Despite the boycott, polling stations were busy in the mostly Sunni Riffa district south of Manama, with long queues since the early morning.
However, in the Shi'ite village of Sanabis to the west of Manama, rocks and stones were scattered in the middle of the street in an attempt to block traffic and prevent voters from reaching polling stations.
Al Wefaq, which has strong links to Bahrain's Shi'ite majority, won 18 out of 40 parliamentary seats in a 2010 election, but it pulled out of parliament a year later during a crackdown against mostly Shi'ite Muslim protesters in the demonstrations in February 2011.
In late October, a court ruled in favour of suspending the activities of Al Wefaq for three months in a court case brought by the government against the organisation in July, alleging that it had broken the law.
Bahrain, an ally of fellow Sunni monarchy Saudi Arabia and home to the US Fifth Fleet, accuses Shi'ite Gulf power Iran of stirring up unrest and says it has made many reforms since 2011. Iran denies those charges.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article