Kuwait's Thaw

The liberals swung behind that because they had been frustrated for years, even decades, by the government's ability to divide and rule the members of the Parliament, and the Islamists swung behind it because they thought they had the strongest platform and could possibly be the strongest political party. You had this liberal-Islamist coalition that was pushing the government harder than it wanted to be pushed. So now this coalition is trying to make that the central issue of this election.

The coalition had gotten enough people in Parliament that they could basically threaten to bring the government down. And they brought a motion to formally question the prime minister, a leading member of the ruling family, and that is the farthest that any Kuwaiti Parliament had dared to go in challenging the government. They really embarked on this full-on confrontation with the government, and the government said, "We can't work with them, we're going to have to elect a new one." And it is quite possible that the new one, this reform coalition is hoping, will have enough votes to force this issue on the government again.

The issues they are raising are perennial issues in the Kuwaiti Parliament, debated over and over, and the government usually finds a way to fend off pressure for change. While the opposition wants to make this a big, definitive election on reform issues, the government has shown in the past that it is very adept at parrying reform pressures. Also, secularists and Islamists are very suspicious of each other on virtually every other issue, so the coalition might fall apart. But if they manage to win a victory in this election and force through an electoral reform, they will really change the nature of Kuwait politics.

What would these reforms mean for the Arabian Gulf?

There has been a trend in the past 10 to 15 years toward writing down constitutions, electing assemblies, those sort of things. And those countries tend to watch what's going on in Kuwait fairly closely. Kuwaitis take some pride in acting as a democratic leader in the gulf. "What happens in Kuwait today will happen in Qatar in 10 years," is sometimes how Kuwaitis talk. I don't know if it will follow automatically, but there is definitely some Kuwaiti influence by example in the region.

© 2006