There is no talk in Kuwait these days other than talk of the parliamentary elections. In truth, the fixation on these elections makes a person who is a stranger to Kuwait and its people think that he is seeing the first ever parliamentary elections in Kuwait, and would not believe that this is the fourth elections of this kind in the country since 2006. They have surpassed the Americans themselves, who hold elections every two years only, and the British who believe that they have the ‘mother of all parliaments'. However, the British House of Commons comprises the government party or the loyalists, and the opposition party, while the Kuwaitis seem to have concocted a miraculous feat with their parliament, as it comprises an opposition and another that is more belligerent or radical. The opposition in Kuwait is something peculiar to the country. On the second of February, the voters will choose 50 MPs, and I hear that the opposition has an opportunity to increase its share of the seats, although I personally believe that all 50 MPs will be in the opposition, albeit they will be in varying shades and degrees thereof. I arrived in Kuwait on Saturday evening, stayed over on Sunday and left on Monday afternoon. This gave me the opportunity to read the Kuwaiti newspapers over three days, which was a pleasure indeed given the sharp competition among them, all in a true democratic atmosphere. I was pleased to read Al-Qabas, which used to be printed in London and then stopped, and Al-Watan which had also followed suit with Al-Qabas and then stopped as well. Colleague Ahmad al-Jarallah gave me a fireworks show, as usual. His article, entitled “Stop the robbery attempts against the will of the nation”, was the newspaper's front-page headline. This is in addition to an attack on “inciters”, “the MP of checks” and the lies about “million-strong marches”, as well as the “staff of terrorism” and the slogan of “dissent and gain”. I believe he was talking about former MP Faisal al-Muslim. Two days ago, a court of appeals upheld a previous conviction against him pertaining to charges of having disclosed state secrets, which risks seeing him removed from the lists of candidates in the elections. But his supporters have threatened to take to the streets if this happens, while legal experts said that the Constitution sanctions whatever MPs say in the parliament. Others, however, said that this applies to opinions but not to spreading false information. Personally, I am in no position to decide whether al-Muslim's information is correct or false. When I was in Kuwait, I read that there are 369 candidates, including 26 women, competing for the same fifty seats. This is not right because women represent 54 percent of the total electorate. I, for one, had welcomed the last parliament, which included four women, Massouma Mubarak, Rola Dashti, Assel al-Awadi and Salwa al-Jassar, of whom two were Shiites and the other Sunnis, and two were veiled and two bareheaded. Their victory was groundbreaking, being unprecedented even in countries like Egypt and Lebanon. However, I hear now that the chances for Kuwaiti women to win seats in the parliament have fallen, and it seems that the general Arab decline has also hit the women MPs of Kuwait. The number of candidates will drop a lot come election day, with expected withdrawals or after a judicial committee removes the names of candidates who do not meet conditions for nomination. Personally, I wish success for all the candidates who will survive the process, for I do not want to upset anyone. I also wish that half of the parliament will be made up of women, although I do not expect this to happen. I then pause at the news that the Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Defense and Interior, Sheikh Ahmed al-Hamoud, has spoken of cases of vote-buying that were referred to the Prosecutor for investigation. I support the bribery of voters, in Kuwait and elsewhere, because the price for a voter's vote is the only benefit he will receive from their representative in parliament, even if said representative finishes his legal term (which is impossible in Kuwait). This is because we all know that winning in the elections gives a person Alzheimer's disease, making him completely forget the voters, and perhaps not even remembering whether he represents the third or the fifth district. Finally, on the sidelines of Kuwaiti politics, I read a statement by the Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak in which he called for the naturalization of eligible individuals under the Nationality Act and the census of 1965. Here, I wish to see all ‘stateless' people granted Kuwaiti citizenship as they deserve. [email protected]
