Meeting to finalise top council positions

AN URGENT meeting of newly-elected Central Municipal Council members will be held today to nominate candidates for chairman and vice-chairman.
A formal meeting will be held on Thursday, when the official votes will be taken for the two key posts and others. Municipalities and Agriculture Affairs Ministry Under-Secretary Dr Juma Al Ka'abi will attend the meeting.
Al Wefaq has four members on the council and one of them, re-elected councillor and former vice-chairman Abbas Mahfoodh, who met Al Wefaq secretary-general and newly-elected MP Shaikh Ali Salman, hopes to emerge from the talks as either chairman or vice-chairman.
"A balance must be achieved in the council, so if an Al Asala or Al Menbar member is chairman, then the vice-chairman should be from Al Wefaq, or vice-versa," said Mr Mahfoodh, who is Al Wefaq's municipal bloc chairman for the Central Governorate.
"We have already decided that Al Menbar's Tariq Al Shaikh should remain as vice-chairman at the Manama Municipal Council.
He said Al Wefaq held the Central Municipal Council chairmanship for four years, until the death of Ibrahim Hussain in October.
"Even though we were still the majority, we had independent councillor Ibrahim Fakhro as chairman for the remaining two months," said Mr Mafoodh.
"When I go to the meeting I hope that councillors will leave behind any sectarian or political agenda, because this is not parliament, this is a council.
"It is either Al Menbar's Abdulrahman Al Hassan as chairman and me as vice-chairman, or vice-versa. I hope that we reach an agreement which ensures fairness," he said.