Al-Ali’s grilling … exposed

This news has been read 21197 times!

IT is all clear now … Opportunism has been exposed upon the grilling of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sheikh Hamad Jaber Al-Ali. Indeed, the issue at hand is neither about defending and protecting women nor about exposing corruption in the Eurofighter deal.

The file concerning this deal has been in the custody of the judiciary for a long time. There are some who have been sacked or imprisoned, and some others who are also subject to trial.

In short, the actual purpose of the grilling is the refusal of the minister to yield to the MPs’ requirement for passing their personal interests.

What is happening is the most serious abuse of democracy, and the self-interest with which the MPs exercise their role as representatives of the people in the legislative authority. Instead of watching over the interests of those who entrusted them, they tampered with the secretariat, and turned Abdullah Al-Salem Hall into a battlefield motivated by personal agendas.

Therefore, they chose this particular minister, who supervises a ministry that was formerly like an electoral treasure used by the MPs to raise their populist assets. Today, the ministry is a fortified fortress in the face of the “wasta” that has corrupted everything in the country.

Undoubtedly, we will continue to suffer from this grind as long as the MPs continue to exploit the constitutional tools in a bad way. They think of themselves as de facto leaders who are able to dismiss a minister or an undersecretary, or terminate the services of a director whenever they please just by grilling and asking their colleagues to sign a letter of no-confidence that quickly turns into a flea market of deals.

If the government bows to their demands, the minister remains in his position; otherwise he will be forced to resign or he will be dismissed.

In this atmosphere, crises or reforms cannot be resolved. Rather, the most dangerous thing facing the state, or any state for that matter, is the parliamentarians’ transformation of parliamentary practices into personal battles, in which the sense of false knighthood possesses them but soon reveals great ruin.

Therefore, the only solution is to dissolve the National Assembly, work on filling the loopholes in the constitutional text, and recalibrate the compass, through a strong government capable of work and is not subject to any threat if it is right.

Experience over the past two years has proven that the behind-the-scenes deals between the executive authority and MPs have weakened the country, paralyzed its economy, and disrupted its institutions.

Four governments within a period of 23 months did not provide anything to the country and the people because, from the start, they lacked a sound vision and a clear program but most importantly, their ability to confront.

These governments were unable to protect the reformist ministers. They abandoned some of them because they decided to use a lot as means of choosing military cadets. Because of that, some of the MPs did not like such an idea, and so they objected and got what they wanted.

Today, they are trying to complete their project by aiming at Sheikh Hamad Jaber Al-Ali because he closed the doors of profiteering and “wasta” in their faces, and also because he is the hope of many Kuwaitis to take a higher position.

Therefore, if there is no one is who knows exactly the elements of strength that the country needs in order to move forward positively, away from its disappointing past, and resolve the matter by curbing this farce, there is no doubt that we will continue to live in the midst of a cycle of contradictions that will increase the negative repercussions and weaken the state.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

This news has been read 21197 times!