Legislative elections in Kuwait, first ballot after the death of Emir Sheikh Sabah
The Kuwaiti Parliament in Kuwait City, October 30, 2018. Yasser Al-Zayyat / AFP
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Legislative elections are taking place this Saturday in Kuwait, the first since the coming to power of a new emir at the end of September in this small Gulf country which, unlike its neighbors, is experiencing real parliamentary activity.
The 50 seats in the Kuwaiti Parliament are still to be filled, some 340 candidates are in the running, including around 30 women.
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An electoral campaign that is unlike any other: due to the Covid pandemic, Kuwaiti candidates and their supporters have had to do without the traditional banquets and political meetings under large tents erected during the campaign.
The Parliament elected on Saturday will have to take up important issues, starting with the economic situation of this oil-producing country affected by the drop in crude prices.
In this context, corruption is one of the themes that dominated the campaign, explains Claire Beaugrand, researcher at CNRS and specialist in Kuwait: “
The theme of corruption is really very significant in Kuwait, the embezzlement of public money, issues of bribes, are themes that create extremely strong popular resentment.
And so it can be felt in the elections because there is significant anti-elite rhetoric.
"
Another campaign theme: the question of foreign workers whose presence Kuwait wishes to reduce on its soil, a policy which has been accentuated with the Covid pandemic.
This election takes place a few weeks after the coming to power of Emir Nawaf al Nasser al Sabah, who succeeded at the end of September his half-brother Sabah al
Ahmed al Sabah, who died.
To read also: Kuwait: after the death of the emir, what about the regional policy of the emirate?
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