Huffington Post, October 5, 2011

MANAMA, Bahrain –It took Tom Hayden 14 years, two months and four days to go from being one of the leaders at the demonstrations that disrupted the 1968 Democratic presidential convention to his trial as one of the Chicago Seven to winning a seat in the California state assembly in 1982. But just as the ways to campaign and communicate have accelerated since then, so has the time frame from going from leading a huge street protest to being elected to the government you were protesting against.

So say hello to Ali Abbas Shamtoot, 34, former security guard at the Ministry of Education and owner of a mini-bus service who today finds himself a newly elected member of the Bahrain parliament, representing Constituency Four, Capital Governorate.

Shamtoot’s photo was plastered throughout the media as a leader in the demonstrations that rocked Bahrain in February and March. The government’s crackdown to those demonstrations triggered the leading opposition group in parliament to resign its 18 seats. That prompted the just held by-elections to fill those seats, and seven months and 10 days after he was a leading face in the street protests Shamtoot was elected to parliament.

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