MANAMA, 11 November 2002 — The Bahraini government announced its resignation yesterday to make way for a new Cabinet following the kingdom’s first legislative polls in three decades.
Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa ibn Salman Al-Khalifa, who has held the portfolio since independence in 1971, tendered the resignation along with his own to King Hamad after the weekly Cabinet meeting, the official Bahrain News Agency (BNA) said.
The make-up of the new government was to be announced today or tomorrow, according to local press reports. BNA said King Hamad asked Sheikh Khalifa to form a new government.
Diplomats expect the new Cabinet to include some new faces, but say major posts such as defense, interior and foreign ministers are unlikely to be changed.
At least one former opposition member, Majid Al-Alawi, currently secretary-general of the Bahraini center for studies and research, was expected to join the new Cabinet, probably as labor minister.
New ministers and offices for tourism, the environment, and posts and telecommunications, with officials with the rank of minister at their head, will be appointed, a Bahraini official said.
Islamists, mostly Sunnis, grabbed nearly half the seats in the new Parliament elected in two run-offs last month.
Fourteen Sunni and two Shiite Islamists, in addition to a Sunni religious scholar who ran as an independent, won mandates in the 40-seat assembly, the first to be elected since Parliament was dissolved in 1975.
Three liberals, two of them Sunnis and the third Shiite, were also elected. The 20 remaining winners are independents whose bids for Parliament were backed by either the government or the Islamists.
The elected house and the appointed upper house or Shoura Council are due to hold their opening sessions in December, 27 years after the former Parliament was abolished for "obstructing" the government. (Agencies)
