By B Izzak
KUWAIT: Forty-seven MPs of the new 50-member National Assembly held their first informal meeting on Sunday to discuss coordination on priority issues and the election of Assembly panels to be held on the inaugural day on June 20. MP Abdullah Fahhad said after the meeting that there was a consensus on priority issues that should be debated, adding that the meeting did not discuss election of posts. MP Mohannad Al-Sayer said the meeting discussed coordination in electing committees and drawing up priority issues, adding that the main object of the lawmakers is to approve reform laws.
He called on the prime minister to form a Cabinet that is capable of implementing priority issues for the people and also capable of coordinating with MPs. Two MPs have announced they will contest the deputy speaker’s post, Mohammad Al-Mutair, who was deputy speaker of the 2022 Assembly which was annulled by the court, and Marzouq Al-Hubaini.
Several MPs have proposed that the same people who held posts in the scrapped Assembly should be unanimously elected because they did not get enough time in the previous Assembly. But MP Hubaini said while entering the meeting that "this issue should be decided inside the Assembly hall”, a reference to voting. The meeting, hosted by MP Mohammad Hayef, was held hours after 14 lawmakers signed a joint statement proposing a broad roadmap to reforms, development and fighting corruption.
The statement said "based on the popular mandate, it is imperative to launch a new political era to be centered around reforms and development, focus on the diversification of sources of income and encourage fighting corruption and holding the forces of corruption accountable”. The snap polls were called after HH the Amir dissolved the previous 2020 Assembly for the second time. It was first dissolved in August 2022 and parliamentary polls were held in Sept 2022. But the constitutional court annulled the elections, scrapped the parliament and reinstated the dissolved 2020 Assembly.
However, HH the Amir again dissolved the 2020 Assembly in May and called for fresh polls. Kuwait has been rocked by a series of political disputes for most of the past two decades that resulted in dissolving the Assembly about a dozen times and the government on more occasions, resulting in an atmosphere of instability that has stalled development in the oil-rich country. The statement by the 14 MPs said that political stability should be achieved to guarantee meeting the aspirations of the Kuwaiti people.
The statement called for approving legislation to achieve political reforms, like amending the Assembly’s internal charter, establishing an independent election commission and amending the election law. They also called for approving laws to expand freedoms and launch long-delayed mega development projects. They called for amending the law governing the constitutional court.