Page 155 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

Restructuring city and state 135

when councillors were appointed directly by the British agent and by the

ruler of Bahrain. Although British rhetoric of reform hailed municipal

elections as the beacon of Bahrain’s path towards social and political

modernisation, the electoral system in force until 1945 galvanised old

clientelist networks. While government appointees (who after 1926 made

up half of the councillors) continued to be predominantly members of the

old merchant class, ballots contributed to favouring existing office hold-

ers. As the electorate could choose any member of their community who

fulfilled the criteria fixed by the government (that is ownership of real

estate within municipal boundaries), many votes were lost and new can-

didates disadvantaged.

With the introduction of electoral lists in the early 1930s, the admin-

istration accepted electoral candidates on the basis of petitions and testi-

monies by their followers, thus favouring individuals who could mobilise a

vast network of supporters. Further, as the new system restricted the pool

of candidates, influential notables started to canvass their constituencies

more systematically, often recruiting voters from outside their close circle
of affiliates. 53 Popularity among the electorate was not a decisive factor in

organising hierarchies of authority inside the majlis. Government nomi-

nees continued to enjoy more prestige than elected representatives, who
often sought to gain the favour of the authorities for the following round of
appointments. Only the position of municipal secretary, which was filled
in by a government appointee, was monopolised by clerks recruited from
the lower ranks of Manama’s mercantile communities. The relationship
between secretaries and councillors epitomised the growing social ten-
sions between the emerging state bureaucracy and the old political class.
Between 1930 and 1935, at the peak of the pearl crisis, several secretaries
were dismissed by the council as a result of disagreements over matters of
procedure, personal conduct and their alleged excessive interference in
54
deliberations.
As a key area of municipal activity, taxation allowed the members of the
majlis to act as the custodian of their own interests and of those of the
propertied classes. By the late 1930s the benefits of the pearl boom of
the late nineteenth century had become fully apparent as merchants and
entrepreneurs owned more than 80 per cent of properties for residential
53
The Bahrain Government Annual Reports, 1924–1970: ‘Administrative Report for the Years
1926–1937’, vol. II, p. 42; ‘Annual Report for the Year 1365’, vol. III, p. 46. I‘lan
Hukumah al-Bahrayn n. 66 of 1356, R/15/2/1924 IOR; Belgrave to President of
Manama Municipality, 24 February 1946, R/15/2/1252 IOR.
54
‘Annual Report for the Year 1353’ in The Bahrain Government Annual Reports, 1924–1970,
vol. I, pp. 546–7; MMBM, 17 Muharram 1355/10 April 1936, R/15/2/1923 IOR.