12 – 18 November 2015
Parliament set itself on a collision course with ministers this week after passing a law stipulating that government debt could not exceed 60% of GDP – despite repeated warnings from the Finance Minister that such a step would force the Government to review the Budget and halt essential health services and benefits.
There were also numerous angry responses from MPs during the weekly Parliament session after the Government once again rejected a number of their proposals for new health centres, youth facilities and other services.
Debt ceiling vote
During the 17 November weekly parliamentary session, numerous MPs argued strongly in favour of the proposal for fixing the public debt ceiling at 60% of GDP.
New Chairman of the Finance Committee, Abdulrahman Bu-Ali, led these efforts, arguing that most developed states had some form of limits to debt levels. He told his colleagues: “Stand as men – even if on just one occasion… Public debt has reached BD 7bn and the Government is asking to increase it to BD 10bn. The Shura Council may be appointed by the Government, but this is not the case with deputies. So why has this proposal been frozen for seven years, while for years we have been demanding from the Financial Audit Bureau that there be a mechanism for managing public debt?”
The Finance Minister interjected repeatedly, calling on MPs to send the bill back to the Financial Committee for further discussion and warning that such a law would threaten public services guaranteed in the Budget.
Previous Chairman of the Finance Committee Isa al-Kooheji said that MPs should be informed what approving this law would mean for Bahrain. The Finance Minister replied that this would entail that each time the Government wanted to borrow money, it would be forced to come back to Parliament every time and request approval.
Ahmed Qaratah said that the Finance Ministry should have been proposing solutions for addressing the financial crisis, rather than making threats about cutting services for citizens. However, Adel al-Asoumi criticized Bu-Ali’s Finance Committee for rushing through this proposal as an urgent bill before MPs had a proper chance to study and consider it.
It should be noted that in the previous parliamentary year, MPs initially blocked a proposal for increasing the debt ceiling, and then, following extensive ministerial lobbying, passed the increase a few months later.
More proposals rejected
MPs once again responded angrily to a new set of responses from the Government rejecting almost all of their proposals which had been submitted as private bills. In a large number of cases the Government stated that the proposals had already been implemented and in other cases it was said that the funds were not available.
Ibrahim al-Hammadi warned that failing to invest in youth facilities in a manner which stimulated their minds, was a threat to society, risking young people becoming involved in harmful and unproductive activities.
Mohammed Milad complained that the Government’s responses were always too vague and responses from various ministries often contradicted each other. He added: “There is no shame in refusing a proposal outright, but they don’t seem to know what they want. They want to say that there are insufficient funds, but don’t want to admit this directly”.
Khalid al-Shaer demanded a new mechanism for dealing with such private bill proposals. He noted that after the Budget had been signed off, deputies had little power to propose any new ideas. He suggested that in some cases the Government could approve such proposals, but delay them for inclusion in the next Budget.
In any case, these negative responses did not dissuade MPs from passing 16 more private bill proposals during this session for submission to ministers for approval or rejection!
Committees and blocs
Hamad al-Dossary this week said that he would be leading a new political bloc made up of a mix of around ten Sunni and Shia MPs. This follows announcements and rumours about other political blocs emerging in the Parliament. For a full analysis of these emerging blocs, see the separate Citizens for Bahrain report here.
The smaller Committees – after their membership was decided last week – held votes on chairmanship roles this week. After fierce competition for control of the Human Rights Committee, Nasir al-Qaseer won the vote among committee members, beating Accord Bloc member Mohammed al-Maarifi. Mohammed al-Jowder became his deputy.
In the Youth and Sports Committee, Ghazi Al Rahmah was elected chairman, with Hamad al-Dossary as his deputy. It is worth noting that this five-person committee includes three members of Al-Dossary’s political bloc (including Jalal al-Mahfoudh and Al Rahmah), so it was unsurprising that they would dominate the key positions.
In the Palestine Committee (now with only three members, Mohammed al-Ammadi, Mohammed al-Ahmed and Ahmed Qaratah – reportedly all from the National Bloc) Al-Ammadi held onto the chairmanship.
However, for the Women and Children Committee, the vote was blocked after three members (Rua al-Haiki, Muhsin al-Bakri and Anas Buhindi) absented themselves. Reportedly, Fatimah al-Asfour is backing incumbent Chairwoman Jamila al-Sammak, while Salafist MPs associated with Asalah, including Buhindi, have been lobbying in favour of Rua al-Haiki. This gives Muhsin al-Bakri (Accord Bloc) the deciding vote. Al-Bakri has affiliated himself with the Islamist MPs on a number of issues, so it will be interesting to see whether he backs Al-Haiki.
Jamila al-Sammak (a Shia MP from Hamad al-Dossary’s new bloc) may have alienated the Islamist MPs by taking a tough stance on pro-women issues. She is also outspoken on the issue of female detainees. Al-Haiki (a Shia businesswoman) is at odds with several members of Al-Dossary and Al-Sammak’s political bloc after accusing four MPs from this bloc of defaming her.
Thus – as was the case with the voting on membership and leadership of the five permanent committees – we can see factional politics playing a significant role in voting patterns here.
Previous editions of A Week in Parliament
A new beginning: 8 – 14 Oct 2015
New political alliances: 15 – 21 Oct 2015
Anger over subsidies: 22 – 29 Oct 2015
Raising meat payments: 30 Oct – 4 Nov 2015
Tattoos & sorcery: 5 – 11 Nov 2015
Political blocs in the Bahrain Parliament
Know your deputy: MPs profiles
Adel al-Asoumi – 1st Capital
Chairman of Permanent Committee for Public Utilities and Environment
Ahmed Qaratah – 2nd Capital
Adel Bin-Hamid Abdulhussain – 3rd Capital
Abdulrahman Bumjaid – 4th Capital
Nasser al-Qaseer – 5th Capital
Chairman of Parliamentary Human Rights Committee
Ali al-Atish – 6th Capital
Chairman of the Permanent Committee for Shari’ah and Legal Matters
Osamah al-Khajah – 7th Capital
Shaikh Majid al-Asfour – 8th Capital
Mohammed Jaffar Milad – 9th Capital
Nabil al-Balooshi – 10th Capital
Ali Bufarsan – 1st Muharraq
Ibrahim al-Hammadi – 2nd Muharraq
Jamal Buhassan – 3rd Muharraq
Isa al-Kooheji – 4th Muharraq
Mohammed al-Jowder – 5th Muharraq
Deputy-Chairman of Parliamentary Human Rights Committee
Abbas al-Madhi – 6th Muharraq
Ali al-Muqla – 7th Muharraq
Abdulrahman Bu-Ali – 8th Muharraq
Chairman of the Permanent Committee for Financial and Economic Matters
Fatimah al-Asfour – 1st Northern
Deputy Chairwoman of the Committee for Women and Children
Jalal Kadhim al-Mahfoudh – 2nd Northern
Deputy Chairman of the Permanent Committee for Financial and Economic Matters
Hamad al-Dossary – 3rd Northern
Deputy Chairman of Committee for Youth and Sports
Ghazi Al Rahmah – 4th Northern
Chairman of Committee for Youth and Sports
Ali al-Aradi – 5th Northern
Deputy Chairman of Parliament
Rua al-Haiki – 6th Northern
Shaikh Majid al-Majid – 7th Northern
Dr. Isa Turki – 8th Northern
Abdulhamid Abdulhussain al-Najjar – 9th Northern
Mohammed al-Ammadi – 10th Northern
Chairman of Committee for Supporting the Palestinian People
Jamal Dawoud – 11th Northern
Jamila al-Sammak – 12th Northern
Chairwoman of the Committee for Women and Children
Khalid al-Shaer – 1st Southern
Mohammed al-Ahmed – 2nd Southern
Abdulhalim Murad – 3rd Southern
Second Deputy Chairman of Parliament
Mohammed al-Maarifi – 4th Southern
Deputy Chairman of the Permanent Committee for Services
Khalifa al-Ghanim – 5th Southern
Anas Buhindi – 6th Southern
Deputy Chairman of the Permanent Committee for Shari’ah and Legal Matters
Abdullah Bin-Huwail – 7th Southern
Chairman of the Permanent Committee for Foreign, Defence and National Security Affairs
Dhiyab al-Noaimi – 8th Southern
Mohsin al-Bakri – 9th Southern
Deputy Chairman of Permanent Committee for Public Utilities and Environment
Ahmed al-Mulla – 10th Southern
Chairman of Parliament