DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Kuwait said Saturday it will hold elections for its national assembly on April 4, a new vote after years of political instability.
State news agency KUNA reported the announcement included in a decree in the oil-rich country’s official gazette.
Kuwait’s emir dissolved parliament in February, according to reports after a lawmaker insulted the president.
Kuwait has been suffering for years from internal disputes – including one over reform of the country’s welfare state – that have prevented the kingdom from taking on debt. That has sapped its available funds to pay huge public sector wage costs despite generating immense wealth from its oil reserves.
The parliament has been dissolved several times after it failed to move measures forward, and the Constitutional Court in 2023 annulled a 2022 decree overturning another dissolution. The then ruling emir, now deceased, again dissolved parliament and called for a referendum to elect a new chamber, which was then dissolved in the February decision.
Kuwait, a country of some 4.2 million people slightly smaller than El Salvador, has the world’s sixth-largest known crude oil reserves.
The country has been a staunch U.S. ally since the 1991 Gulf War that drove out Saddam Hussein’s occupying Iraqi forces. It hosts some 13,500 U.S. troops on its territory, as well as the U.S. military’s forward headquarters in the Middle East.