The kidnapped country and the series of crises

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I have lived through the independence of the state and all the events of the following period, and I have not witnessed major dramatic political changes.

Kuwait may be the only country that surprises its citizens, at least twice  that it has run out of stock of vehicle plate numbers. Surprisingly, the citizens have been informed, also twice, that it has run out of stock of passport copies.

The same thing happens every time a new government is formed when the relevant institutions find out that they are in urgent need of someone to be assigned a specific ministerial position. Then, the issue develops and many names of put forward to end up with a humble result which does not match the big argument and confusion.

This happens every time because of the lack of planning or more accurately because of the lack of desire to have a plan. Over 60 years, there was not a single institution to provide a data base with regular upgrades and showing the bio data of senior officials to help nominate the efficient person to occupy ministerial positions.

This results in waiting for the last moment to search for a Shiite person to this ministry and tribal one to that ministry. This position led the person responsible for forming the government to accept any names only to get rid of the stress.

Later on, it is found out that the choice was wrong because of many reasons such as the minister was convicted of a crime or because of holding fake certificates.

This happened in the recent government formation when HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah was obliged to assign an MP as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister while the later was lying in the hospital only to accomplish the government formation.

Since before the death of the late Amir Sabah Al-Ahmad in September 2020, we have been living in a political crisis that appears from the outside to be a result of a struggle between parties, blocs and parliamentary forces.

However, the truth is, while not underestimating the importance of these conflicts, the crisis is a crisis between those who want stability for the homeland and those who seek dominant positions either directly or indirectly.

These conflicts were reflected in the performance, or rather in the interruption of the performance of the National Assembly, and the complete absence of a mechanism for approving various urgent and important legislations.

That is why, the Amiri decree was issued in April 2023 to dissolve the 2020 parliament and call for new parliamentary elections to elect efficient MPs capable of lifting off the nation. However, the results of the elections disappointed hopes for the best, as the alliance of the two currents, religious and tribal, managed to win the majority of seats, while it came as a surprise to many.

With all manifestations of cautious calm, the political arena is preparing for an upcoming conflict, especially since one party has begun to try to liquidate those affiliated with the other, in a war of exclusion, which may cause us to return again to the square one of governmental and parliamentary deficit.

For the first time in the history of the Kuwaiti elections, one team did not hide its extreme happiness and the other team showed its extreme dissatisfaction with the results.

What was remarkable was the hidden solidarity between the religious and tribal forces, which enabled them to win the majority of the seats and on the committees.

Some observers see this as a warning of the state’s continued decline towards extremism of an already narrow margin of freedom diminishing, and the minority’s arbitrariness increasing in imposing its visions and perceptions related to morals and freedoms, on the overwhelming, more educated and developed majority, and this will further widen the ‘civilizational’ gap between Kuwait and its Gulf sisters, let alone the other developed nations.

The council’s character is religious par excellence, especially since the compliments, known to backward peoples, will push even those who claim liberalism, if they are in the council, to go along with the religious extremists, especially with the apparent absence of faces that could have confronted the extremists forcefully, such as former MP Ahmad Al-Fadhl.

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With the unprecedented formation of the National Assembly, political writing has become like walking in a minefield!

By Ahmad alsarraf

This news has been read 26280 times!