Bahraini general election, 2006

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11 January 2006 (2006-25-11)

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All 40 seats to the lower house

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Ali Salman	Salah Abdulrahman	Ghanim Al Buaneen
Party	Al Wefaq	Al-Menbar Islamic Society	Al Asalah
Seats won	17	7	5

General elections were held in Bahrain on 25 November 2006 for the 40-seat Council of Representatives alongside municipal elections. There was a 72% turnout in the first round of polling. As expected by most observers, Shi'a and Sunni Islamists dominated the poll, winning a clean sweep in the first round of voting, while liberal and ex-communist MPs lost all their seats. Four candidates of the left-wing National Democratic Action (also known as Wa'ad) made it through to second round run-off which was held on 2 December 2006.

The election was preceded by a major political realignment that saw the four opposition parties that boycotted the 2002 elections agree to take part in the political process. These included the Shia Islamist party, Al Wefaq, the radical Shia Islamist Islamic Action Society, the left-wing National Democratic Action Society and the Nationalist Democratic Rally Society. To meet the challenge posed by Al Wefaq, the two main Sunni Islamist parties, the salafist Asalah and the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Al-Menbar Islamic Society, agreed to form a coalition to maximise their votes.

With Al Wefaq entering the political arena after boycotting the 2002 elections, competing candidates turned their attention to its agenda, particularly the party's relationship with the highest Shia religious body in Bahrain, the Islamic Scholars Council. Several candidates claimed that they were being forced out of the race, including Jassim Abdulaal of the Economists Bloc, by influential clerics who told their congregations who to vote for [10]. The criticism became more pointed after the Council described Al Wefaq as the 'Bloc of Believers'.

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