Ayatollah Qassim: Al-Khailfa’s Coming Elections To Slaughter Democracy

By Staff, Agencies 

Bahrain’s most prominent cleric Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim urged a boycott of Al-Khaifa regime’s forthcoming parliamentary elections, confirming that the sham vote is meant to "slaughter democracy" in the kingdom.

This comes as the ruling Al-Khalifah regime is insistently exercising its heavy-handed crackdown on dissents.

In a post published on his Twitter page, Ayatollah Qassim reiterated his call on people from all strata of the Bahraini society to boycott the elections, stating that voter participation would not result in the consolidation of democracy in Bahrain as communities are largely excluded from the political process.

“How would it be possible to strengthen democracy [in Bahrain], whilst elections have originally been designed to destroy it? This is an election whose doors are closed to those who seek democracy,” he underlined.

In parallel, Sheikh Qassim underlined that “The right decision is to boycott participation in the upcoming elections. In that case, democracy would not completely disappear and dictatorship would not become more institutionalized.”

Earlier, His Eminence had stated that the Manama regime wants to maintain its grip on power and strengthen tyranny in Bahrain by means of the ballots cast in the elections.

“Elections in Bahrain are only meant to reinforce tyranny, and people play into the hands of the ruling regime and are treated as playthings,” the Bahraini leader tweeted on November 2.

Bahrain’s main opposition group, the Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, has already called for a boycott of the upcoming parliamentary elections in the country, amid an escalation of political repression and absence of meaningful reforms.