The emir of Kuwait, Nawaf al Ahmad al Sabah, called elections this Sunday for September 29 to elect a new parliament to replace the one he dissolved in June as a result of the ongoing confrontation with the government.
“A decree issued today calls on citizens to elect members of the National Assembly (Parliament) on Thursday, September 29,” the official Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported, without giving further details.
The Kuwaiti Parliament, with 50 seats, was dissolved on June 15 by decree of the emir in the midst of political paralysis and reciprocal accusations between deputies and members of the Government for which the previous Executive resigned en bloc last May.
Kuwait announced on August 1 the formation of a new government headed by the emir’s son, Ahmed Nawaf al Ahmed al Sabah, in an attempt to resolve the political paralysis in which the country lives, and which has been exacerbated by the economic repercussions of the covid-19.
That was the fortieth executive in the history of Kuwait and the fifth during the government of Nawaf al Ahmed al Sabah, who took power at the end of September 2020.
Those two years were characterized by continued tension between the Government and the Kuwaiti Parliament as a result of accusations of corruption and inefficiency on the part of the legislators against the ministers, who accused the deputies of “abuse of the tools that allow him to question” the members of the Government.
Kuwait does not have political parties, but it is the only Arab country in the Persian Gulf that has a democratically elected Parliament, which has traditionally exercised a controlling role over the Executive.