Kuwait faces dilemma as post-Eid standoff looms

Manama: Kuwait’s Emir has urged his people to work together to preserve the integrity of the country.

“If Kuwait is lost, we too are lost, but if it remains, we remain with it,” Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad said. “Kuwait should and shall remain for us, our sons, our grandsons and the next generations thanks to our cooperation, cohesion and loyalty,” the Emir told a group of citizens.

Shaikh Sabah has been holding meetings with the heads of diwaniyas, the typical Kuwaiti private social halls, to communicate with them over the latest developments in the country.

Kuwait has been deeply divided after the opposition on Sunday evening challenged strict interior ministry instructions and took to the street to protest against the amendment of the 2006 controversial electoral law.

The amendment reduced the number of candidates a voter can elect in parliamentary elections from four to one.

The government said that the change for the “one man, one vote” was needed to address possible legal loopholes and to ensure a fairer representation of the people.

The opposition, led by Islamists who dominated the parliament between February and June, said that the amendment was meant to bring in a more complaint legislative house, and pledged to apply street pressure.

On Sunday evening, demonstrators joined three different rallies with the aim to converge outside the government’s house.

However, security men stopped them and forced them to abandon their march following clashes in which several people from both sides were injured.

The opposition said that it would consider its options, but ruled out accommodating the changes to the electoral law. Many former lawmakers said that they would boycott the elections scheduled for December 1.

Websites said that new rallies would be held on November 4 to press for the reversal of the decision.

However, people who supported the change said that the “one man, one vote” was the international standard and that the Kuwaiti practice of “one man, four votes” was an irregularity that had enabled the emergence and consolidation of the “[You] scratch my [back], I scratch yours” practice that resulted in the short-lived and inefficient parliaments since 2006.

Former parliament Speaker Jasem Al Khorafi on Wednesday challenged the former lawmakers who opposed the amendments to prove they are the true representatives of the people.

“The decision to amend the electoral law was a necessity that serves the higher interests of the nation,” he said. “Whoever is confident enough and claims he is representing the nation should take part in the elections so that when he wins, he is a legitimately elected lawmaker and can then make statements on behalf of the nation,” he said.

With both sides mobilising Kuwaitis for their positions, the medical association said that it would not call for the participation or boycott of the elections.

“We are fully convinced that every citizen is responsible for his or her personal decisions,” the association said. “No association or civil society organisation has the right to impose its views or custody on its members or on the society because everybody is free and entitled to their opinion. They are free in their views, be they in favour or against the amendment of the electoral law,” the association said in a statement published by Sabr news site.

The association said that it does not want to get involved in purely political issues that are not related to the professional rights of the people it represents.

The association’s stance sharply contrasted with those expressed by other groups that openly supported or opposed the changes.

The recent crisis is the worst in Kuwait since it was invaded in 1990 by the Iraqi former regime of Saddam Hussain.