JEDDAH, 5 March 2006 — A group of defeated candidates from last year’s municipal elections here lost their day in court once again, Arab News has learned. For a third time, the hearing has been rescheduled — this time for March 25.
The Court of Grievances accepted a request from the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs to postpone a hearing that was scheduled for Feb. 28 in order for the ministry’s appeals committee to formulate a response based on the facts in front of it. This marks the third delay in the hearing over a lawsuit disputing the outcome of the elections in April 2005.
Shortly after the election, the defeated candidates formed a coalition to challenge the results in court. They argued that the endorsement by certain religious scholars ensured that their opponents would win the first-ever local council elections in the country.
“The approval of certain religious scholars gave the candidates more publicity. That is not fair to other candidates,” said Ehab Al-Solemani, the spokesman for the plaintiffs.
The first hearing was scheduled for Sept. 19, but representatives of the ministry’s appeals committee failed to appear. The hearing was rescheduled for Nov. 15, and, again, nobody from the committee showed up. The ministry argued that the court was not qualified to look at the case. The court responded by rescheduling the hearing to last Tuesday. This time, the ministry asked the court to grant more time for the appeals committee to formulate a proper response. The hearing was then rescheduled to late March.
The candidates had argued in November, when the second delay was announced, that if the hearing continued to be postponed, the elected council members would begin to meet before a decision had been made on the fairness of the election. Since the council began meeting in January, it seems that their concerns were justified.
