Great day for fundamentalist in Kuwait

So Kuwait is going to the dogs. The Parliament that was dissolved has been replaced by one that is even more conservative. So maybe we'll continue moving further back in time. It already feels like the 19th century here. Bring on the 18th I guess. I think it might be time to start looking for another job far far away.
Here is the news as reported by the Arab Times.

Old … new faces reheat the grill as voters dissolve a dissolution
KUWAIT CITY : Radical Sunni Islamists made a strong showing in Kuwait’s legislative election and minority Shiites gained one more seat, reflecting heightened sectarian sentiment and conservatism in the country. Women, despite numbering more than half the electorate, again failed to enter Parliament, according to official results released on Sunday. The hardline Islamic Salafi Alliance and its allies won at least 10 seats in Saturday’s poll, almost twice their strength in the previous chamber. Sunni and Shiite Islamists grabbed more than half of Parliament’s 50 seats. Sunni Islamists won 21 seats, four more than their number in the previous Parliament which was dissolved by HH the Amir in March after a standoff between the government and MPs.

The moderate Islamic Constitutional Movement, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, however saw its strength cut by half to three MPs. The number of lawmakers from the Shiite Muslim minority increased by one to five. All elected Shiite MPs are Islamists, including two members of the previous Parliament who took part in a controversial rally in March to mourn Imad Mughnieh, the slain military commander of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The rally triggered sectarian tensions between Shiites and Sunnis. The government cracked down on Shiite activists amid Sunni protests that they had mourned a militant accused of hijacking a Kuwaiti plane in the 1980s. “The Mughnieh issue has certainly increased sectarian polarisation and tension in the country, benefiting radicals on both sides,” political analyst Mohammad Al-Ajmi told AFP.

Shiites constitute one-third of the native population of just over one million. Liberals and their allies won seven seats, one fewer than in the previous house, while the nationalist Popular Action Bloc led by veteran opposition figure and three-time speaker Ahmad Al-Saadun took four seats, down one.
Political analyst Saleh Al-Saeedi said he believes the polls, conducted on a new electoral system with broader constituencies, will help lay the ground for establishing political parties after most candidates campaigned as part of a group in order to increase their chances of winning. “I think this will make it easier for the government to deal with political blocs rather than individuals. The next period will witness progress towards political parties,” Saeedi said.

Political parties are banned in Kuwait, but various groupings operate as de facto parties. Women, who were contesting the election for only the second time, failed to win any seats, underlining the conservative nature of Kuwaiti society. Female voters made up 55.4 percent of the 361,700 eligible voters in Saturday’s early election, but only about half of them cast their votes, according to turnout figures. Total turnout was 68 percent. Twenty-seven female candidates were in the running, but with women standing for election for only the second time, their limited experience in campaigning was seen as one of the reasons for their poor showing. Analysts say women in the Gulf region generally tend to follow the lead of their families and tribes when casting their ballot.

Kuwaiti women had also failed to make a breakthrough when they voted and stood for office for the first time in the June 2006 legislative ballot. Twenty-two new faces will enter the Parliament, mostly from tribal areas. Voters have said they wanted change in a bid to end political feuding and put the wealthy Opec state back on the track of economic development. Under the constitution, the cabinet will resign within two days and HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah will ask the current premier or another member of the ruling family, as is the norm in Kuwait, to form a new cabinet before the new Parliament holds its first session by the end of May. At least one member of the 16-strong cabinet must be an elected MP. Unelected ministers become ex-officio members in Parliament and enjoy the same voting rights, thus raising the house membership to 65.

Accordingly, the Islamists’ victory will not translate into a majority in the assembly. Parliament, elected for a four-year term, has legislative and monitoring powers and can vote ministers out of office but it cannot bring down a whole cabinet. The bourse edged down after the results. The exchange, the second-largest in the Arab world, had risen after Parliament was dissolved on hopes the new chamber would be more business-friendly but has since shed some of its gains. The last assembly focused on questioning ministers over their conduct, forcing several to resign. Kuwait has yet to appoint an oil minister since the last one quit in November. Twenty-eight members of the previous Parliament were re-elected, according to results carried by the official media. Many of the new faces hail from tribal areas.

Hopes for economic reform in Kuwait were dealt a blow by the election results. Islamists and tribal alliances maintained their grip on power. “Everybody already says this is an unstable assembly and will not continue for long,” said Nabeela al-Anjari, a women’s activist and former candidate in the 2006 election. “The majority will support the existing powers who will follow only their interests ... We are heading towards a critical period of crises.” Amid the political wrangling, reforms such as a bill to attract foreign investment and another to create a financial regulator were left on the back burner. Multi-billion dollar plans to explore some northern oil fields have also been delayed, partly because Islamist and tribal deputies objected the involvement of Western firms.

“It is true that some faces were changed, but in general the situation remained as it was before. The number of Islamists and tribes has even increased,” said Ali al-Baghli, a former oil minister and critic of Parliament and government. “If the same old pattern continues, the outcome will be the dissolution of the Parliament again.” “We expected Kuwaiti voters to be more aware,” said Najla al-Naqi, a 42-year-old lawyer who ran for a seat. “We had hoped for new young faces, for one woman at least.” Al-Naqi said she was disappointed as well with a new electoral law that slashed the number of voting precincts from 25 to five, aiming to reduce tribal voting and fraud. “Vote-buying has diminished, but it is not totally gone,” she said. “The solution is in Kuwait becoming a single constituency.”

Another voter, 26-year-old Zainab Murtadhawi, said she believed Kuwaitis re-elected the parliamentarians they know and trust. “The new ones, we don’t know,” she said. Al-Baghli, the former lawmaker, urged patience and said Kuwait’s democracy was still young. ‘Slowly, slowly the experiment will correct itself until we reach a party system where the majority rules – maybe in decades,” he said. Meanwhile, His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah Sunday sent cables of congratulations to the winners in the 2008 Parliament elections wishing they would prove up to their grave new responsibility. His Highness wished the new MPs succeed in serving their constituents and their homeland and in contributing to the development of the homeland and its prosperity. His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah sent similar cables on this occasion.

By Dahlia Kholaif
Arab Times Staff and Agencies