By B Izzak

KUWAIT: The national assembly secretariat has sent out invitations for the opening session of the new parliament for October 18 despite political controversy, the assembly secretary general Adel Alloughani said Thursday. Loughani said that the old invitations for the previously announced opening on October 11 have been cancelled. Senior officials and politicians in addition to diplomats are normally invited to the assembly’s inauguration.

The assembly was due to hold its opening session on October 11 but due to problems surrounding the cabinet line-up, an Amiri decree was issued postponing the opening by one week to allow the prime minister-designate more time to form his cabinet. A majority of MPs and many constitutional experts and lawyers have insisted that the new date is unconstitutional and urged the government to hold the meeting earlier. The government appears to have ignored those calls. HH The Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Nawaf Al-Sabah has held talks with almost all the 50 elected MPs in the past few days to listen to their views about the next cabinet and cooperation with parliament. The new cabinet is expected to be announced anytime with local media reporting that the line-up is expected to be made public during the weekend.

In the meantime, the constitutional court Thursday received nine new petitions against the general elections held on September 29, raising the number of challenges the court has received to 36. The last day for candidates to submit petitions is on Sunday. After that the court, whose rulings are final, will study the challenges and issue verdicts. A majority of those who challenged the elections are candidates who fell just short of winning a seat in the assembly and claim there were errors in counting and calculation of votes. Others called for nullifying the elections as a whole because they claim that two Amiri decrees issued ahead of the polls were unconstitutional.