MANAMA — Plans by an exiled Shi’ite leader to return home raised the stakes in a power struggle in Sunni-ruled Bahrain on Monday, as mainly Shi’ite protesters in Manama’s Pearl Square pressed demands for a new government.
Haq movement leader Hassan Mushaimaa, tried in absentia in Bahrain for attempting to topple the government, said he would fly back from London on Tuesday, posing a fresh challenge to the ruling al-Khalifa family, whose legitimacy he has contested.
Mushaimaa’s Facebook page said he wanted to “see if this leadership is serious about dialogue and if it will arrest him or not.” An arrest warrant for Mushaimaa is outstanding.
King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has asked his son, the crown prince, to conduct a dialogue with all parties, but after the bloodshed on the streets, in which seven people have been killed and hundreds wounded, opposition parties are wary.
Haq is more radical than the Shi’ite Wefaq party, from which it split in 2006 when Wefaq contested a parliamentary election. Wefaq’s 17 MPs resigned last week in protest at the violence.
“They (Haq) are less likely to take a conciliatory position toward the regime,” said Shadi Hamid of the Doha Brookings Center. “They are not yet explicitly calling for its downfall, but they are not interested in being part of the system.”
Haq’s leaders have often been arrested in recent years, only to receive royal pardons. Some were rearrested in a crackdown in August, when 25 Shi’ite activists, including 23 now on trial, were charged with trying to overthrow the government violently.
PROTESTERS PACK PEARL SQUARE
Up to 10,000 people again packed Pearl Square, at the heart of week-long protests led by majority Shi’ites demanding more say in the Gulf Arab country, a close U.S. and Saudi ally.
Over 1,500 striking teachers joined them to back demands for change. “No teaching until the government falls,” they chanted.
Over 1,500 striking teachers joined them to back demands for change. “No teaching until the government falls,” they chanted.
The opposition is demanding a true constitutional monarchy that gives citizens a greater role in a directly elected government. It also wants the release of political prisoners.
“In the eyes of the people the government has already fallen,” said Amir Ahmed, 38, a government oil sector employee.
The demonstrators in Pearl Square were impatient for change after seeing the fall of entrenched rulers in Egypt and Tunisia.
Lamia, a 26-year-old primary school teacher, said Bahrain would also topple its leaders. “We are much stronger than them and we hope it will happen as soon as possible,” she said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned any attempt by Bahraini security forces to crush peaceful protests in the island, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
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