RIYADH, 12 February 2005 — As the names of winners were announced yesterday, pro-Islamist candidates appeared to have emerged as a triumphant bloc in the capital in the Kingdom’s landmark municipal elections held on Thursday.

The preliminary list of winners was announced last night at a press conference by Prince Mansoor ibn Miteb, chairman of the Election Commission.

Prince Mansoor said the winning candidates for the seven seats up for grabs on the Riyadh city council were Abdullah Al-Suweilam, Suleiman Al-Rashoudi, Tareq Al-Kassabi, Abdul-Aziz Al-Omari, Omar Basudan, Ibrahim Quaid and Misfer Al-Bawardi. It emerged that behind-the-scenes “alliances” and “machinations” preceded the balloting for Riyadh region’s municipal councils.

One of the official complaints to the local election commission, spotted by Arab News, said that some candidates were misleading voters by telling them they were “approved and blessed by Muslim scholars in the Kingdom as the ideal candidate for the community.” The complaint also said that the list of the so-called “blessed people” was distributed via SMS text messages on Thursday morning, hours before balloting started. The dissemination of the messages was done through a private company financed by one of the candidates who happened to win a municipal seat.

The alleged newly formed pro-Islamist bloc was accused of using the Internet, particularly well-known sites as a platform to pass their misleading messages to the public. Such practices tend to distort the fairness of the campaign and raise many questions.

Several losing candidates said the names of at least six of the seven winners had been on a list distributed by mobile phone and the Internet, which suggested they had Islamist backing.

“I don’t know them personally ... But they had a religious character to them,” Zafer Al-Yami, one of the defeated candidates said of the winners.

Yami said he planned to appeal the result because he said the winners had violated election rules forbidding any public coalition or alliance of candidates. “I will appeal, not because I lost the election, but because I believe there is a system and a law we should respect,” he told Reuters.

Prince Mansoor said that every candidate has the right to submit his complaint to the Grievances Committee within five days of the day of announcement of the results. And the committee should make its judgment within five days of receiving a complaint. Participation during the first round of municipal elections, in the capital Riyadh and in surrounding areas, reached 73.6 percent, according to preliminary official figures released yesterday.

In Riyadh, participation was 65 percent, while the number of voters who turned out in the outskirts reached 82.3 percent, the Elections Commission said.

In contrast to that, only slightly more than 140,000 men, or some 30 percent of eligible voters, had actually registered to vote.

Prince Mansoor said polling centers were closed on Thursday at 5 p.m., except for a few which were still processing voting. Sorting of votes started immediately afterward and continued until 7 a.m. yesterday.

“The sorting and counting process was supposed to take 48 hours. However, upon insistence from the local commission, most ballot centers were closed on time and the commission completed their job except for a few who were still processing the voting,” he explained. Prince Mansoor said the polling went in an organized and smooth manner. However, “there were small issues in certain centers but all were sorted out on the spot, as was reported by observers and members of the commission.”

A candidate, who is also a journalist, asked Prince Mansoor about the serious violation to the principle of transparency and to the election law when a coalition of candidates who eventually won the elections manipulated religion in promoting their coalition. They purportedly said that their list was “blessed and supported by a number of Muslim scholars and members of the senior Ulema in the Kingdom.”

Prince Mansoor said “as per the law and regulations there is a Grievances Committee to whom any voter or candidate can submit his complaint supported with documentary proof. The committee, which is an independent body is comprised of legal experts and judges, and has no relationship whatsoever with the national or local election commission.”

Prince Mansoor said the elections, supervised by the local commission, was “successful, fair, and transparent by all standards.”

Some candidates who spoke to Arab News expressed their dismay and said that there were many violations in the ballot centers.

Bandar Othman Al-Saleh, who lost in the sixth precinct, said he strongly believes that many complaints will be submitted to the Grievances Committee from all districts.

About bending the election laws, Hizam Al-Otaibi, a candidate, said: “What has happened is unacceptable. The winners used religion to showcase their platforms. They used the Internet to post messages and to tell people that they are blessed by scholars and that whoever votes for them would be doing a good thing for society.”

“Let’s wait and see what the Grievances Committee will have to say about these complaints,” he added.