MADINAH, 29 September 2006 — The Elections Supervising Committee announced yesterday the names of the new board of directors elected to the Madinah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI).

The election process was halted three months ago due to reports of embezzlement and other financial discrepancies.

Voter turnout was low during the two-day elections with only around 200 casting their votes out of 3,500 eligible voters. As was expected, the “For Madinah” party gained the majority.

“The Future” party, which was the largest challenger to the favored winner, withdrew two days before the election in protest over the chaos that resulted from the postponement of the polls.

The election for the MCCI board of directors was supposed to be held on May 13 but the election supervising panel, formed by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, postponed the polls on the request of the Madinah Municipality.

A committee was formed to investigate allegations of embezzlement and forgery in the chamber’s membership fees, which found them to be true to the tune of around SR630,000 ($168,000).

After implicating the responsible individuals, the supervising committee rescheduled the election to Sept. 26-27.

Although “The Future” party made the announcement of their withdrawal in a newspaper article, their representatives were distributing pamphlets urging people to vote for their candidates.

Voters found that to be another attempt by the group to obstruct the election process and confuse people. Nevertheless, some of the group’s nominees managed to receive a few votes, which means that their names were still listed on the ballot papers.

The first day of voting on Tuesday, from 8:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., witnessed a small turnout but that changed in the last hours of voting in the second day after the candidates organized their campaigns.

The candidate with the highest number of votes in the commerce sector was Faisal Al-Rehaili with 117 votes and in the industry sector was Fouad Al-Shareef with 130 votes.

Five businessmen in the commerce sector and five in the industry sector were voted to form the new board of directors with another five to be appointed by the ministry.

Hassan Al-Shareef, one of the winning candidates in the commerce sector, expressed his gratitude to voters and promised that the group would put in all efforts in serving the chamber and the business community of Madinah.