Islamists Win Saudi Elections

According To Preliminary Results Which Are Already Being Contested

(CBS/AP)  Candidates backed by Islamic clerics won races in the Saudi Arabian capital in the kingdom's first regular balloting, an election observer said Friday.

Suleiman al-Oqaili, the observer, said at a press conference to announce the preliminary results he had seen the seven winners' names on a list circulated via cell phones and the Internet.

"It was promoted as a list that had a religious blessing," al-Oqaili said.

A losing candidate objected to the results, claiming that the circulated list violated the electoral law by claiming religious backing.

The chief of the election commission, Prince Mansour bin Miteb, told al-Oqaili that objectors had five days in which to file complaints with the Grievance and Complaints Committee. The committee is then obliged to respond within five days.

At least five of the seven preliminary winners are believed to be Islamists. It was not known whether the seven had sought the clerical endorsement indicated on the list or whether they received the backing unsolicited.

Losing candidate Thafer al-Yami told The Associated Press he had seen the list.

"These people have hijacked the elections," he said.

Al-Yami said list indicated an alliance among "certain people who follow the same line."

"The list contravened the election law. We want transparency," he said, calling for the election commission to investigate the list.

Prince Mansour said that of the 86,462 registered voters in the city of Riyadh, 56,354 had voted, making for a turnout of 65 percent.

Only males were allowed to vote, and the only female holding a ballot at the Riyadh polling place visited by CBS News Correspondent Sheila MacVicar Thursday was nine-year-old Noura, whose father brought her along to help cast his vote.

"I think it should be for everybody," Noura's father, Turki al Athel, told MacVicar. "It's not only for males. Males and females."

More than 1,800 candidates were contesting 127 seats in the capital and surrounding villages, with 640 of them running for seven seats in Riyadh. Two more phases will cover the rest of the country in March and April.