Destructionists … not MPs

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NINETY days of the life of the current National Assembly have passed but all we have witnessed so far are aggravations, interpellations and a flood of parliamentary questions for the ministers and their head.

In these past ninety days, no achievement in terms of legislation has become recorded by the new parliament in favor of Kuwaitis on which the latter can place their hopes for an escape from the stumbling that prevailed in the previous years, and the problems that crippled the economic movement of the country and intensified exhaustion of the public funds.

Many had warned about this unhealthy situation, especially concerning the parliamentary ill-attempts to overrun the powers of the executive authority.

If one contemplates on the ongoing situation, they would discover that the aim of such attempts is to hijack the powers of the head of the state, because hijacking the authority of the government is followed by negligence of work, or rather cancellation of Article 51 of the Constitution. This will render Kuwait to be at the mercy of parliamentary dictatorship, which sets its policies in accordance to the personal interests of the parliamentarians and not the public interest. The country will hence transform into a country of peasantry, sectarianism and tribalism, which means that Kuwait will enter the club of failed countries with distinction.

Don’t the MPs see the acute economic and financial crisis in the country or the unproductive private sector, which has been crippled by series of laws that were earlier stipulated with malicious intent and desire to absorb it?

Didn’t they observe the lack of productivity of the state institutions and thousands of unemployed Kuwaitis, or even the effect of all these problems on the social situation of thousands of families?

Instead, they branched out for their own self-serving agendas, which are based on vengeance and absorption. This makes everyone wonder if democracy is actually like this, and if the amendments proposed by some are in line with the Article 175 of the Constitution for “increasing guarantees of liberty and equality”. Or does the toppling of the state and its history represent the preliminary step towards introducing laws that will kill national diversity and freedoms of speech and opinion, which are the essence of the Kuwaiti society?

Majority of the parliamentarians tend to forget the Constitution when it clashes with their personal interests, especially if the clash concerns practicing the authorities vested in them by the Constitution.

Unfortunately, this kind of attitude contributed to deterioration of the level of the language used in the parliament to street language.

Because of this, these people perhaps need to undertake some courses about the Constitution in order for them to realize where both authorities will end up when they are preoccupied with shenanigans, unproductive confrontations and interpellations which could qualify the Kuwaiti parliament to enter the Guinness Book of World Records.

In the eighties, interpellations dominated the National Assembly to the extent that it ended up being suspended for four years. Under such a situation, there were two options in hand — one option lead to suicide of the state by leaving the authority in the hands of the parliamentarians, and the other is to preserve the life of the state and strive towards wise guidance of the parliamentary practices.

Unfortunately, the same thing is reoccurring today, accompanied with absurd level of language and hurling of accusations as well as the parliamentary race to score points on who will be the first to grill the Prime Minister or some other minister before others … destruction in this manner is what is ongoing.

Indeed, those who are striving for destruction are destructionists, not people who deserve the honor of representing the people of Kuwait and legislating for them, and not people who are aware of their wise role of legislation and oversight on the executive authority, and who respect the principle of separation of authority.

However, it is like talking to a wall. Therefore, this raises a very important question – does Kuwait deserve this after 56 years of the inception of the Constitution, which we will be commemorating day after tomorrow?

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

This news has been read 6165 times!