Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): Despite the government's tricks to increase the turnout percentage in the elections, it was forced to falsify the numbers after being surprised by the extent of Bahrainis' unwillingness to participate. 

The government announced a fabricated turnout rate that was the highest since the first legislative term in 2002. Justice Minister and Election General Supervision Supreme Committee Chairman, Nawaf Al-Maawda, claimed that voter turnout reached 73%.

How did the Minister come up with this record rate? And why was it tampered with to be made the highest? How can this percentage be higher than the turnout in the 2006 parliamentary elections, in which the opposition took part with its full weight, and which reached only 72% at the time?

The low number of votes obtained by candidates in most districts reveals the extent of fraud carried out by the government to face the frustration it is experiencing as a result of unwillingness to participate in Saturday's sham elections. 

To explain the situation more, we can refer to Muharraq district, for example, which Al-Wefaq MP Sheikh Hamza Al-Dairy won in 2006, with 4,507 votes out of 4,992 votes; i.e. more than 90% of total votes.

However, in yesterday's elections, candidate Hisham Al-Ashiri won only 1,390 votes, and all competitors in the constituency received 2,237 votes, meaning that all the candidates together didn't get half of Al-Dairy's votes.

Assuming that the electorate in Muharraq has remained the same since 2006 until today, the percentage of boycotts in this district alone is more than 50%. If we assume that the electorate increased by a thousand, the turnout did not exceed 38%.

Even with removing more than 94,000 citizens from the voters' lists, turnout will not reach 73% because this certainly contradicts the figures announced by the Justice Minister, since they are illogical.

The Minister announced the participation of 251641 voters in 55 polling stations within 12 hours. How was this large number of voters received during this short time?

If we divide the number of participants equally by each polling station, this means that each center received more than 4,500 voters in just 720 minutes, an average of 2.11 voters per minute. This figure does not seem to be exaggerated, but the voter registration is exaggerated. 

To be clear, every voter needs to register their data before obtaining an electoral card to cast their ballot. If we know that each center has 3 data entries, this means that each employee received and recorded the data of more than two voters per minute, which is impossible. 

It's a made-up number by all accounts. Neither the number of votes obtained by candidates in opposition districts, in particular, explains announcing such a percentage, nor does the process of recording voters data-that is if the prior tampering with voter lists is not taken into account.

The government wanted to address the frustration and went so far as to announce a record turnout that did not occur even with the participation of opposition groups in the 2006 elections, such as Al-Wefaq Society, which received 63% of the votes, in addition to the candidates of Waad and other opposition parties, which garnered a considerable number of votes.

Arabic Version