Muscat, Oct 04: Omanis today voted to give their 83-member advisory council a fifth three-year term in the first ballot open to all citizens of the conservative Gulf sultanate. Scores of voters, women in long black robes and men in traditional white garb, formed long queues in two of the capital's main polling stations in the morning. And many more were leaving a third center by midday, suggesting the government might achieve the high turnout it is seeking to compensate for a disappointing rate of voter registration. But despite government pleas for voters to choose candidates on the basis of merit rather than kinship, most people said they had cast their ballot for a relative or for the candidate picked by "the sheikh", or their tribal chief. "The sheikh told me to vote for Saif al-Rahbi," said an elderly man who could hardly walk and had to be assisted to put his paper in the ballot box. A total of 506 candidates, 15 of them women, are vying for seats on the Majlis Ash-Shura, which advises the government on economic and social issues but has no say in defense, internal security or foreign policy.
Bureau Report