Bahrain Parliament 1973, religious block

General elections were held in

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

for the first time on 12 December 1973. 30 seats out of the 44-seated

unicameral Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multi ...

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...

were contested, the other 14 were ex officio. Of the 24,883 registered voters, 19,509 cast a ballot, giving a voter turnout of 78.4%.Nohlen et al., p54 Two distinct political blocs amongst the elected members; the "People's Bloc" consisted of eight Shia and Sunni members elected from urban areas and associated with left-wing and nationalist organizations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, the

National Liberation Front – Bahrain The National Liberation Front—Bahrain ( ar, جبهة التحرير الوطني—البحرين) is a communist party in Bahrain. It was founded on 15 February 1955, the first leftist party in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Among the ...

or the Baathist movement. The 'Religious Bloc' was made up of six Shia members mostly from rural constituencies. The remaining members were independents with shifting positions.

Electoral system

The elections were held under the 1973 constitution. The 44-seat

had thirty members elected by a franchise restricted to male citizens, with an additional 14 ministers of the royally-appointed government becoming ex officio members.Bahrain

Federal Research Division The Federal Research Division (FRD) is the research and analysis unit of the United States Library of Congress. The Federal Research Division provides directed research and analysis on domestic and international subjects to agencies of the Unit ...

, 2004,

Kessinger Publishing Kessinger Publishing LLC is an American print-on-demand publishing company located in Whitefish, Montana, that specializes in rare, out-of-print books. According to Kelly Gallagher, vice president of publishing services at a bibliographic inform ...

, pp 97 - 98

Elected members

The elected members of the 1973 national assembly were:

Aftermath

In 1975 the Assembly was dissolved by the then ruler Sheikh

Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa (; 3 June 1931 – 6 March 1999) was the first emir of Bahrain from 1961 until his death in 1999. Born in Jasra, Bahrain, he became emir upon the death of his father, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. Early life and reign ...

because it refused to pass the government sponsored

State Security Law of 1974 Following Bahrain's independence from the British in 1971, the government of Bahrain embarked on an extended period of political suppression under a 1974 State Security Law shortly after the adoption of the country's first formal Constitution i ...

. Isa subsequently refused to allow the Assembly to meet again or hold elections during his lifetime. The next parliamentary elections were held in 2002 after a gap of 27 years. During that period,

was run by the royally-appointed government under emergency laws.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bahraini general election,1973

1973 Events January * January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 15 – Vietnam War: ...

General election 1973 general election Non-partisan elections