KUWAIT CITY, Jan 20, (KUNA): Environmental activists called on the 2012 National Assembly candidates to adopt some environment-related issues in their agendas.
In various statements to KUNA, they stressed the importance of addressing these issues in order to find tangible solutions to environmental dangers faced in the country.
Jinan Bu’Shihri, member of the Municipal Council and Head of the Environmental Affairs Committee, called on candidates, who are soon to be future members of the parliament (MPs), to take on implementing an already existing environmental sustainability charter that aims at enforcing environment protection laws in the country, encourage investments in environment-friendly projects within the country’s overall development plan and launching a long-term environmental awareness campaign with cooperation of all the country’s ministries and bodies.
She noted that this charter is currently “on hold” and it can only see the light if future MPs gathered enough support to push this law toward implementation. Meanwhile, Chief of Kuwaiti Dive Team at the Environmental Voluntary Foundation Waleed Al-Fadhel drew attention to many unhealthy environmental practices that are negatively affecting the human health and leading to the destruction of marine life.
“The concept of cultural environment should be made well-known to the public by all means possible,” Al-Fadhel stressed.
Many other activists voiced out the same concerns by saying that there should be a “green” movement inside the parliament to encourage projects that call for utilizing natural resources of power and using modern technologies to help limiting pollution.
Meanwhile, Faisal Al-Dwaisan, candidate of the first constituency for the National Assembly elections said Thursday voters should vote for the right and most efficient candidates.
“The voters shoulder a great responsibility for protecting the national interests and strengthening democratization drive,” Al-Dwaisan said in an address to a symposium Thursday evening.
“A real development is unlikely without concerted efforts by people from all walks of life, relentless combat against corruption and national unity,” he said, urging voters to participate heavily in the coming elections and vote for the righteous candidates.
“If the voters abstain from going to polls, this would risk deepening the tensions and crises and hindering the quest for restoring Kuwait’s status as the Pearl of the Gulf,” Al-Dwaisan cautioned.
He called on the voters to determine their choices away from any sectarian or tribal considerations.
The recent period was the changing for the country due to the fomenting seditions and feuds which risked to defragment the social texture, he added, noting that tense atmospheres are detrimental to legislative action.
In another report, Third Constituency candidate Hisham Al-Baghli stressed the necessity of taking serious measures to guarantee that the coming elections are free and fair, reports Al-Seyassah daily.
He said the government should control money politics, and wondered why it asked a non-government organization (NGO) to supervise the electoral process.
He said the former government was scared of the opposition and therefore, could not take any decisive stand on any issue. Al-Baghli also condemned the parliament storming incident, saying the youths were misled.
Meanwhile, Suad Al-Tararwa who is contesting the National Assembly elections from the Third Constituency during her election seminar has taken the former government to task saying it failed to tackle the problem of unemployment, reports Al-Seyassah daily.
She declared the former Parliament held several meetings to solve the issue but it seems the former government ignored the suggestions.
She disclosed the problem of unemployment keeps snowballing and put the number of the unemployed citizens at around 20,000.
Meanwhile, an opinion poll conducted by the Al-Qabas daily through the Opinion Research Company show the pattern of voting in the next elections will be on the waning side, reports the daily.
The daily said the poll shows less than 58 percent of the eligible voters will cast their ballots. The daily also said the next National Assembly will not represent a wide section of the society and that the women may be the biggest losers.
The poll shows the second constituency has a highest percentage of voters - 51 percent — who are least concerned about the elections while the credit for the lowest percentage in the same category goes to the voters of the fourth constituency - 37 percent.
The poll also shows only 54 percent of the female voters have shown some concern for the elections. Fifty-five percent of the voters say money will influence the election results.
The daily added the voter takes into account the candidate’s past history, his political and intellectual direction and last but not the least the charisma of the candidate while casting the ballot.