The Bahrain History - Essay Example

The Kingdom of Bahrain’s Municipal Council Introduction The Bahrain or Bahrain Kingdom is a borderless country in the Persian Gulf, that consisting of 33 islands over the years it has experienced tumultuous cultural and economic changes and has been a thriving center for trade for over 500 years. The Arabic word, Bahrain literary means two seas. Its name comes from the fact that it has two water sources, salty water from the surrounding seas and sweet water from its pure springs. Another reason is due to the existence of the south and north waters of the gulf, which separate the Arabic and Iranian coast from Bahrain. During the country’s expansion period, it first experimented with municipality as a means of keeping up with burgeoning educational, social and economic demands symbolized by the rapid pace the country was expanding. Its implementation helped the country manage these aspects and it is with this introduction that this paper will look at the Bahrain municipal council in relation to its municipality by law, its municipality restoration dates, number of councils, objective of the councils, structure of the council, and the duties of its members. The municipality by law Municipality councils or anything of its kind did not exist in the Bahrain state before 1919. The real reason as to why the municipality was set up by the Bahrain State was mainly to serve and aid its citizens in different sectors of their lives. In addition, it was meant to help them strategize or organize their daily lives, mainly in the year 1337 during the months of Do-Aloqdah. This corresponded with 1919 July when the Bahrain government established the Bahrain municipality that is based in Manama and in the entire Arabian world or Arabian area. It was considered as the first of such establishments and this made it unique. As modernization begun in Bahrain, an order was issued in accordance to this progress on 20/1/1920 and the above-described municipality became the first official department of its kind set up in Manama. Moreover, it was passed into law starting the municipality process in the Bahrain history. In 1339, the municipality council was established corresponding to that of 1920 as the first administrative structure in the country. It had a modest budget and the council was established as the first developed administrative body in Bahrain to manage the country’s affairs (Seddon 1). The municipality restoration dates The first dignitary to preside over the Bahrain municipal council was the late Isa Alkhalifa. This is until the end of 1920 when he succeeded his highness. During this period, the municipality council members increased to twenty members from the initial eight. The country’s economy was boosted by the municipality’s income and this prompted the government to hold elections, whereby the government appointed half of the council while the others were elected. The 1951-52 municipal council elections saw Bahraini women participating. Until 1956, Shaikh Abdullah presided over the municipal council when he was nominated to head the administrative council. The Late Salman Alkhalifa then took over the throne as the succeeding Amir, after his father Shaikh Salman. He headed the municipal council until the year 1967, when the municipal council shifted to being an administrative body. The municipality was then taken over by Bin Khalid Alkhalifa and during his term the council, the decisions and resolutions taken then were fraught and decisive with accomplishments. In addition, he added many departments to council, which helped speed up development and progress (Hourani 18). The councils continued as they were until the late 60s when nominees were voted in and this gave them a voice to push the government for a transfer that happened during the 1970 Independence Day. Their functions increased and were troubled with subdivided roles. Because of the lack of space in the offices, the officials pressured for administrative growth and increase due to the increase of population. They sort to relocate to a spacious building with numerous offices to address the congestion issue. The Isa Alkhalifa building that was adjacent to Bab Al Bahrain then became the new municipality building following one year of law legislations and organizations. The municipal was relocated to Manama, three years since the building was demolished and the municipality was started replaced now by interaction of Shaikh Abdullah (municipality’s arena) and the Manama municipality roads (Kingdom of Barhain 1). In 1957, His Highness the late Bin Hamad Alkhalifa,  the then ruler of the country approved and issued an order to own on government road maritime plot of land to offer the municipality new accommodations. It was opened on December 16, 1962 by Bin Salman, the Amir at that time, to mark celebrations of the national day’s first celebrations. The appointed ministers continued with their roles until a 1970 decree allowed the setup of a Bahrain state council. State ministries and much later executive rulings among them municipality and agriculture directorates comprising of the following village affair directorate, agriculture directorate and municipality directorate bound this council. In 1971, 14th August, at the beginning of Barhain independence, the then Amir of Bahrain gave an order to title the state council as a directorate council and the municipality became the agriculture and municipality directorate, which was decreed in the year 22/8/1973. Its mandate was to establish a municipality central commission to carry out all roles of the municipality council that was already disbanded for a two-year transitional period (Terterov 7). Number of councils In the 1960’s Bahrain mainly consisted of four main municipal councils that included Hidd, Manama, Riffa and Al muharaq. However, the four municipalities over the period of the last 30 years have been divided into municipalities mainly as settlements such as Isa town and hamad town, which grew exponentially dictating the need for diversity within the council. These municipalities got their directives mainly from Manama under a centralized municipal council whose members were directly appointed by the king of Bahrain. After the country’s independence in 1971, the first municipal elections ever to be conducted was in 2002, and the most recent of these elections being done in 2010. However, the municipal under the new constitution has five main municipal councils and each of these councils has 10 members elected and a single appointed chairperson. The main objective of the councils The council’s prime role was to act as a political oversight for the functions, management and programs administration for the municipal. All the local governments’ powers were actually vested in the municipal. Therefore, the council had the power to make laws and effectively implement these passed laws since the person in charge of its administration was actually the king. The municipal had legislative and executive authority over issues as written down in the country’s constitution. Another one of their objectives was to manage any of the issues given to it by the provincial or national legislations. Initially the king appointed an eight-member team from the council and their main objective was to administrate the municipality daily activities that were initially structured around issues affecting the citizens. This is in accordance to re-organizing their daily lives, among other sectors like health. Since the municipal councils’ establishment, it started to provide commercial shops and houses with nominal fees and begun to clear litter that had accumulated in Manama known as the alsamadah. As time passed, the municipality expanded and begun to undertake other different tasks like opening new markets, expanding the roads in 1929, opening slaughter houses, standardization and measurement, establishing and maintaining drainage systems for example those for rain water fall and water sanitation in general. The composition of the council The established Bahrain municipal council composed of 28 main members chosen by the prime ministers edict. This comprised of 14 members who were mainly citizens from the municipal council and 14 other members that represented the state ministries that related to public offered services. The then minister of municipal council mainly chaired the central municipal commission (Gillespie 8). The duties of the members The members’ roles in the municipality included representing the public and considering the interest and well-being of the municipality, evaluating and developing the programs and policies of the municipality in accordance to the Bahrain laws and requirements. They are also tasked with determining the type of services that the municipal council should offer. They also were given the mandate to ensure that administrative practices, policies, procedures and controllership policies procedures and practices are in place to implement the council’s decisions. This is done to ensure the transparency and accountability of the senior municipal operations. Another role that they have is to undertake the council’s duties under any of its stipulated acts and lastly they are tasked with maintaining the financial integrity of the municipal council (Wright 17). Conclusion Throughout the history of Bahrain, the municipal council has played a significant role in establishing the country as the economic trade hub that it has become, the constitutional and leadership changes it has undergone has seen it do exemplary feats that are not revolutionary in the Arab world like the election of women in the municipal council. However, even with all these achievements it is still clear that it still needs to incorporate many aspects in its leadership to make the council much stronger and effective in its work. Works cited Gillespie, Carol Ann. Bahrain. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2010.7-12 Kingdom of Barhain, History of Shura Council ,information center, retrieved from http://www.shura.bh/en/InformationCenter/ 2009 Hourani, Albert Habib. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.17-19 Seddon, David (ed.). A Political and Economic Dictionary of the Middle East. Philadelphia: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2008. Terterov, Marat (ed.). Doing Business with Bahrain: A Guide to Investment Opportunities and Business Practice. 2nd ed. Sterling, Va.: Kogan, 2005.3-8 Wright, Steven. "Fixing the Kingdom: Political Evolution and Socio-Economic Challenges in Bahrain." (2010), 16-28 Read More