Manama: Kuwaiti parliament hopeful Adel Al Jarallah Al Kharafi became on Thursday the ninth candidate to announce he was withdrawing from the parliamentary elections.

Al Kharafi, who had registered to run in the Second District, said that he took the decision for personal reasons after pondering all the aspects surrounding his candidacy.

On Wednesday, seven candidates said that they were withdrawing from the race scheduled for November 26 when Kuwaiti men and women choose their 50 lawmakers in the new parliament.

One candidate withdrew before the end of the registration window last Friday.

The withdrawals reduced the number of candidates to 395.

None of the women candidates withdrew, leaving the number of women candidates vying for a seat at 15, one of the lowest since women were allowed to run and vote in the election.

However, the figure is likely to go down further as the election commission is sifting through the applications to assess the eligibility of the candidates.

In its report, the commission said that 47 candidates should be barred for failing to fulfil all the requirements or to carry through the registration process according to the regulations.

The list includes a member of the Al Sabah family, Shaikh Malek Al Sabah, and former lawmakers Safa Al Hashem and Abdul Hamid Dashti.

Some of the candidates faced court sentences, while others did not meet the good reputation status required to contest the polls.

The commission said that Shaikh Malek was among the 30 candidates who did not have the right to run.

Under election rules, members of the Al Sabah ruling family cannot run in the parliamentary election.

Dashti, a former MP, cannot run as he faces more than 30 years in jail stacked up against him from several trials resulting from cases filed against him for insulting Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the Kuwaiti judiciary.

Dashti, who has been abroad since March, registered his name to run in the election on November 26 after a court dropped an initial ban against him for signing up by proxy through his son. The rules call for the physical presence of the candidate at the time of the registration.

Meanwhile, a court on Wednesday reinstated two candidates and is looking into other cases filed by candidates who challenged the decision by the commission to disqualify them.

However, the government has readied itself to dispute verdicts by the court and appeal them at a higher court.