Kuwait will be going through another round of parliamentary elections next week. The outcomes will not differ from those of the February 2012 elections, since both the government's and the opposition's stands regarding all the controversial issues remain unchanged. Politics is the art of the possible. This term was coined by Otto Von Bismarck in the nineteenth century and also constituted the title of the British politician, R.A. Butler's memoirs in the last century. However, prominent writer John Kenneth Galbraith had a different say when he indicated that "politics is not the art of the possible. It consists of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable." The Kuwaiti opposition discarded these two contradictory definitions of politics. It is insisting on obtaining everything while it actually got nothing in the former elections and will also get nothing this time. This means that the opposition is depriving itself from the right to take part in decisions concerning the major regional issues. I will try to be objective and civil. During the past elections, one opposition member, Mr. Musallam al-Barrak, said: we want to take part in power. However, it is impossible to achieve participation through boycotting. The opposition lost the previous elections by following this erroneous method and it will lose again unless it rectifies its mistake. Nevertheless, the Kuwaiti opposition must play an important part in running the country and democracy cannot prevail without democracy. Speaking of democracy, the term "one man, one vote" was coined by the people of Athens two thousand years ago. The Romans copied this and had senators representing them in Rome just like the American Senate nowadays. The definition remained unchanged until the early twentieth century when women in Britain obtained the right to vote. Some people opted for saying "one person, one vote" since the word ‘person' applies to both men and women. Others however preferred "one man (or woman), one vote." The meaning however remains unchanged since the early days in Athens and up until our time. For the readers who wish to know more, in 1964 the U.S. Supreme Court issued its verdict in the case of Reynolds vs. Simms and passed, once again, the principle of "one man, one vote." The court was then presided by Judge Earl Warren, who was perhaps the court's most famous president. The verdict was issued through a majority of eight judges to one. I am neither a lawyer nor a judge. However, I gathered that the judges decided that the constituencies must have a close number of voters whereby one constituency with a hundred citizens cannot possibly have one representative in the state council while another constituency with a hundred thousand citizens also has one representative. An American citizen can vote for one representative at the Senate and one representative at the House of Representatives. He can also vote for a representative at the state council and he might even elect the police chief, the state's chairman of the Education Department, and others. However, a citizen can cast one vote at a time. The Kuwaiti opposition is opposing the very essence of democracy by demanding the right to vote more than once in order to elect the Kuwaiti members of parliament. This is no democracy but a way to exchange favors between the blocs aspiring for an exaggerated parliamentary representation. This kind of practice is called ‘gerrymandering' whereby a decision maker tries to manipulate the borders of a constituency to modify the voters' structure there. The best example can be seen in Northern Ireland where the borders of a constituency were modified in order to include more Protestants, thus outnumbering the Catholics and electing a Protestant rather than a Catholic representative of the constituency at the parliament. I am trying to convince the Kuwaiti opposition that boycotting is wrong and that voting more than once is also wrong. The opposition has the right to exist only under the ceiling of the law. I should also point to another error committed by the opposition leaders as repeatedly indicated in the political statements: the charges of bribery and corruption. One of Britain's most famous journalists, C P Scott – the chief editor of the Manchester Guardian for 59 years – once wrote: Opinion is free but facts are sacred. In other words, people are entitled to have their own opinion but the information must be correct. This is a global principle and a religious one as well. We say "claims must be supported" and they say "the accusing parties must provide proofs." I hope that the Kuwaiti opposition reconsiders some of its positions, which will be beneficial to them. [email protected]
