Casting ballots: Omanis vote for consultative council

MUSCAT: Omanis voted on Saturday to elect their purely consultative Majlis Al Shura council, which Sultan Qaboos has pledged to vest with new authorities in response to unprecedented social unrest.

Voting centres across the sultanate closed at 1500 GMT after opening for 12 hours and drawing a “strong” turnout, according to an electoral commission official. “There was a strong and significant turnout of voters in the morning, and it continued throughout the afternoon,” Sheikh Ali bin Nasser al-Mahruqi told AFP.

No figures were immediately available. Some 518,000 eligible voters out of about two million Omanis were called to take part in the polls in which 1,133 candidates, including 77 women, competed for four-year terms in the 84-seat council.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2011.