October 25, 2002	Friday	Sha’aban 18,1423

MANAMA, Oct 24: Bahrainis began voting on Thursday for their first parliament in nearly three decades but an opposition boycott and sectarian tensions have clouded prospects for this historic election.

Bahrain is reviving the parliament as part of political reforms aimed at healing sectarian rifts that sparked unrest in the 1990s.

The election is the first since the last parliament was dissolved in 1975.

But four mainly Shia parties, including the popular mainstream Wefaq Society, are shunning the poll in protest at amendments that grant the 40-seat elected assembly equal legislative powers to another council appointed by the king.

King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, a reformist monarch in power since 1999, urged Bahrainis to uphold national unity and vote.

“What shall fathers and mothers tell their children if we boycott the future,” he asked in a televised address. “We have embarked on a historic process and we are not going back.”

The resurgence of sectarian dissent in pro-Western Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, comes amid heightened anti-US sentiment in the Gulf and concerns about regional security after attacks on Western targets in Kuwait and Yemen.

Diplomats, however, said the poll would consolidate stability in Bahrain, rather than reignite sectarian violence.—Reuters