Kuwait opposition abandons ‘failed’ poll boycott

This news has been read 2958 times!

KUWAIT CITY, Nov 5, 2016 (AFP) – Kuwaiti opposition groups are aiming for a comeback in parliament after a four-year election boycott, seeking to reverse what they see as the deteriorating political situation in the Gulf state.

More than 30 prominent Islamist and liberal opposition figures and former lawmakers have registered to run in the November 26 polls in the hope of forming a formidable political force.

Kuwait’s 50-seat parliament is considered the most powerful of its kind in the Gulf Arab states thanks to its legislative and monitoring capacities.

But most of the political clout in the oil-rich country still lies with the emir, and a senior member of the Al-Sabah ruling family will be mandated to form a government regardless of the poll outcome.

The opposition groups boycotted two general elections in 2012 and 2013 in protest at a change in the voting system brought unilaterally by the government.

The opposition alliance said at the time that the change, later endorsed by Kuwait’s constitutional court, would allow the government to control parliament and promote autocratic rule.

“The opposition has discovered that the boycott was not the right choice. In fact, they found that they have only isolated themselves,” political analyst Nasser al-Abdali said.

“I think the boycott has considerably weakened the opposition as a whole,” Abdali, the head of Kuwait Society for the Promotion of Democracy, told AFP.

Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah last month dissolved parliament over a dispute over a hike in petrol prices and called for snap polls.

The opposition held massive street protests in 2011 and 2012 demanding democratic reforms and an elected government in the emirate, which has a population of 4.3 million, of which 70 percent are foreigners.

But over the past two years, the strength of the opposition, which last controlled parliament in February 2012, weakened considerably.

The change in the voting system and the opposition boycott together helped elect a pro-government assembly that critics often described as a “rubber stamp” parliament.

By boycotting the polls, the opposition sent an important message against the government’s “unconstitutional practices” that undermined true democracy, Islamist candidate Mohammad al-Dallal said.

This news has been read 2958 times!