Kuwait Times, Sunday, May 07, 2023 | Shawwal 17, 1444
Candidates throw hat in ring
Kuwait :
A large number of former MPs said on Tuesday they
have decided to run in the upcoming elections which will be held after HH the
Amir dissolved the National Assembly for the second time in nine months. Speaker
of the dissolved Assembly Marzouq Al-Ghanem was the first to announce that he
will be contesting for an Assembly seat from the second constituency, from where
he had won an Assembly seat for more than 15 years. Ghanem did not run in the
2022 elections that were annulled by the constitutional court.
Former MPs who declared their candidacy include Fares Al-Otaibi, Abdulkarim
Al-Kandari, Muhannad Al-Sayer, Muhalhal Al-Mudhaf and Hamad Al-Obaid, who said
they will contest for a seat from the third constituency. Former lawmakers Obaid
Al-Wasmi, Saud Al-Mutairi and Thamer Al-Suwait said they will run in the fourth
constituency, while Khaled Al-Otaibi announced his candidacy from the fifth
district. Ex-MP Abdullah Al-Mudhaf is contesting in the first constituency.
Many more are expecting to announce they are running in the coming few days,
especially after the interior ministry sets the exact date of the elections and
opens registration of candidates. HH the Amir on Monday issued a decree
dissolving the 2020 National Assembly, which was reinstated by the
constitutional court in a ruling issued on March 19.
The decree said the Assembly was dissolved based on the articles of the
constitution, in respect of the will of the people and to safeguard the higher
interests of the country and its stability amid international and regional
economic changes. It said as a result of these reasons, it became necessary to
go back to the people to choose their representatives.
This will be Kuwait’s third parliamentary polls in less than 30 months and the
10th elections since 2006 amid continued political crises between the
governments and MPs. It will be the second election in less than nine months.
This is also the second time that the National Assembly elected in Dec 2020 was
dissolved by HH the Amir. It was dissolved for the first time in August last
year because of political disputes between the government and the Assembly. As a
result, snap polls were held in September, when the opposition scored a massive
victory. But the 2020 assembly was reinstated eight months later by the
constitutional court, which annulled the September elections and scrapped the
2022 Assembly.
Local media expected a hard-fought and decisive election that could set the
future of the country. In a front-page editorial, Editor-in-Chief of Arabic
daily Al-Rai Jassem Boodai said the forthcoming polls could be the most
dangerous in the country’s history. “It is not an exaggeration to say that the
upcoming elections are very important, and could even be the most dangerous in
the history of Kuwaiti elections, because they are a dividing line between the
consecration of state institutions and the continuation of chaos,” Boodai wrote.