KUWAIT CITY —
Kuwait will hold its most inclusive
elections in a decade Thursday with some opposition groups ending a boycott
after the oil-rich country’s royal rulers pledged not to interfere with
parliament.
اضافة اعلان
The polls are the sixth in 10 years, reflecting the
repeated political crises that have gripped the only Gulf Arab state with a
fully elected parliament.
The elections come after Crown Prince Sheikh
Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah announced the dissolution of parliament in June
following disputes between lawmakers and the government, the fourth to be named
in two years.
Several
opposition MPs had been on strike in protest at delays to parliamentary
sessions and the failure to form a new government. A core source of friction is
MPs’ demand for ministers from the royal family to be held accountable for
corruption.
Kuwait, which borders Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Iran
and is one of the world’s biggest oil exporters, has held 18 elections since
the parliamentary system was adopted in 1962.
But when he dissolved parliament, Sheikh Meshal
promised there would be no interference by authorities in the election or the
new parliament.
“We will not interfere in the people’s choices for
their representatives, nor will we interfere with the choices of the next
national assembly in choosing its speaker or its committees,” the crown prince
said.
“Parliament will be the master of its decisions, and
we will not be supporting one faction at the expense of another. We will stand
at the same distance from everyone.”
Opposition figures have stayed out of elections over
the past 10 years, accusing executive authorities of meddling in the workings
of parliament.
One of them, People’s Action Movement candidate
Mohammad Musaed Al-Dossari, said he had been persuaded to stand again by the
crown prince’s promises.
Sheikh Meshal’s speech “reassured” Kuwaitis and
“encouraged the political groups and MPs who had been boycotting to return to
run in the elections”, Dossari said.
Vote-buying
Thursday’s vote also comes
after the country’s emir issued an amnesty last year for political opponents
who had been tried on various charges.
Some 305 candidates, including 22 women, are
competing for 50 seats in five constituencies. Parliament has been all-male
since the only woman MP lost her seat in December 2020.
Women represent 51.2 percent of the 795,920 voters.
About 70 percent of the population of around 4.2 million is made up of
expatriates.
While the last elections were affected by
COVID-19 measures, this time candidates have been able to open electoral offices and
hold live hustings. Security services have stepped up their monitoring of
vote-buying.
The election results are expected to be announced on
Friday. The opposition, mostly Islamist politicians, won 24 seats out of 50 in
the last polls.
Like other Gulf countries, Kuwait is trying to
diversify its oil-dependent economy but bureaucracy and corruption, and the
lack of effective planning, have stymied the transition.
Unlike its neighbors, Kuwait, a US ally which hosts
thousands of US troops and whose citizens are a mixture of Sunni and Shiite
Muslims, has few young politicians or diplomats in senior positions.
It has a persistent problem with the fate of its
population of Bedoun, a stateless and marginalized minority of about 100,000,
and has faced security problems related to armed groups in the region,
including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The most recent in a series of attacks was in 2015,
when a Daesh suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shiite mosque, killing or
wounding hundreds, the day after election results were announced.
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