A 59-year-old has witnessed remarkable stations.. How many times has the Kuwaiti National Assembly been dissolved in its history?

KUWAIT -

During the 59 years since its establishment, the Kuwaiti National Assembly has witnessed many milestones and prominent events that led to its dissolution in several legislative chapters, the last of which was the 2020 Parliament, which was dissolved last June, and some of which resulted in the resignation of a group of deputies.

Articulated stations

Perhaps the most prominent of those stations in the life of the National Assembly, since the first legislative term, was the 1963 assembly, which carried the first beginning of parliamentary life in the country, as it witnessed the resignation of 8 deputies, in protest against the adoption of laws restricting freedoms;

While the 1967 parliament witnessed the resignation of 7 deputies in protest of their accusations that “elections were rigged”;

The Council of 1975 was dissolved by an Emiri order in 1976 after the government submitted its resignation on the grounds of blocking draft laws that had accumulated for some time.

The history of the Kuwaiti National Assembly, which was established in 1963, was not without crises (Al-Jazeera)

Prior to that, the Parliament of 1971 witnessed a motion of confidence in the Minister of Trade and Industry - at the time - Khaled Al-Adsani, but the request failed after 20 deputies rejected it and 13 deputies supported it.

The 1981 assembly witnessed a change in the division of electoral districts from 10 to 25 districts, while the 1985 assembly was dissolved by an Amiri order in July 1986 against the backdrop of what was known as the climate crisis (the great collapse of the informal stock market), and the subsequent interrogations that disrupted cooperation between the two authorities .

As for the first time that the council was constitutionally dissolved, it was in 1999 (for the 1996 assembly) due to some parliamentary practices in the use of constitutional tools.

The 1992 assembly is the first after the interruption of parliamentary work for 6 years before the ordeal of the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, while the 1999 assembly completed the legislative term despite the many interrogations it experienced.

His Highness the late Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah takes the constitutional oath before the 2006 Parliament (Kuwaiti Press)

As for the 2003 Council, it witnessed the pledge of allegiance to His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Ahmad, the Emir of the country after being named by the Council of Ministers. The Council also agreed to give women the right to vote and vote, while the Council was constitutionally dissolved in 2006.

In the 2006 assembly, women participated for the first time in the parliamentary elections, while the 2008 assembly was the first to hold elections for its members according to the five-constituency system, and it was dissolved in 2009 for lack of cooperation between the two authorities.

The 2009 Majlis witnessed - for the first time - an interrogation request for the Prime Minister and the incident of storming the Majlis, and soon an Emiri order was issued to dissolve it in 2011.

Single voice system for the first time

The 2012 assembly, whose elections took place in December, is distinguished by being the first assembly whose members are elected by a single vote after a decree was issued to amend the electoral law. The assembly was abolished in 2013 after the ruling of the Constitutional Court.

As for the 2013 parliament, it is the first council after the Constitutional Court fortified the one-vote decree, and it was known for the numerous requests by deputies to interrogate ministers, and the result was that it was dissolved due to the lack of cooperation between the two authorities.

The sit-in of a group of deputies inside the National Assembly formed a large pressure paper (communication platforms)

As for the 2016 Majlis, at the end of its term, Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad was pledged allegiance as Emir of the country in 2020.

The Council of 2020 witnessed many events, represented in the presence of intense competition for the presidency between the candidate Marzouq Al-Ghanim and the candidate of the opposition bloc Badr Al-Hamidi, and the results of this - following Al-Ghanim's victory - were reflected in the sessions of the Council that witnessed great opposition to the government's performance, and its absence from most of the sessions, and the matter ended with announcing Twenty-one MPs staged a sit-in on June 14, protesting what they describe as "disrupting the constitution."

political maneuver

Constitutional expert Muhammad Al-Faili believes that the early dissolution of the National Assembly has become one of the tools of political maneuvering, and the idea of ​​an early solution is always a way to confront the imbalance in the relationship between the legislative and executive authorities.

Al-Faili added - in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net - that the frequent resort to this method is evidence that the rules of the game or the method of forming the government open the door to imbalances that are difficult to address in managing the direct relationship between the government and Parliament within the framework of the rules of the parliamentary game, so Parliament is dissolved either to change the government team or to bet to change the direction of Parliament.

In addition to this, the idea of ​​ministerial recycling appeared, and this draws attention to the fact that during the legislative term, the government resigns without dissolving the National Assembly, and is reconstituted, and in the meantime, the old government does not attend the parliament’s sessions;

This is a way of managing the tense relationship between the government and the National Assembly.

What is the solution not to repeat the dissolution of the Council?

Here, Al-Faili believes that there may not be a solution, and that what is happening is within the management of the relationship between the two authorities, and may have called for a reconsideration of the rules of the game.

These rules are the constitution and political reality on the one hand, and parliamentary rules on the other.

The last assembly witnessed the pledge of allegiance to His Highness Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad, Emir of Kuwait (Kuwaiti press)

Al-Faili added, "Reconsidering the constitutional rules means an amendment to the constitution. This also means that there must be an agreement between the parties to provide a majority for the amendment, and I think that this does not exist in the foreseeable future."

It is also possible, according to Al-Faili, to reconsider the method of organizing political life, and move from elections based on the individual relationship between a voter and a candidate to organizing political life to adopt the idea of ​​the existence of parties, in addition to the possibility of changing the rules for managing the relationship between the government and the National Assembly within Parliament, including It requires a review of the internal regulations for parliamentary work.

Solutions are available, but some are difficult in the near future.

No change in the political equation

For his part, Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University Ghanem Al-Najjar believes that the dissolution of the National Assembly does not seem to change much of the political equation, unless it is linked to a number of electoral reforms, such as controlling restrictions, independence of supervision, or the proportional list.

The only council that was supervised by an independent higher committee for elections was the Council of December 2012, which was issued by a decree of necessity, which led to its invalidation by the Constitutional Court, on the grounds that it was not necessary to issue it, while it adopted another decree of necessity, which is the one vote.

Al-Najjar adds that since the start of the elections with the Constituent Assembly 1962 until the Council of 2020, which was recently dissolved, we have experienced 16 councils, and the number of councils that have been dissolved is 10, or more than half, two of which were dissolved outside the scope of the constitution, exceeding 60 days, which is the specified period. To hold elections, meaning that the solution was nothing but a call for early elections.

The upcoming elections will be lackluster, according to Al-Najjar (Kuwaiti press)

Al-Najjar believes that the government began interfering directly in the 1967 elections, and continued in indirect ways, which can be called the secret history of interfering in the elections, until the intervention became a custom and part of the customs and traditions of the Kuwaiti elections.

The simplest of these interventions is the government's adoption of specific candidates, and transactions and services are facilitated for them, provided that they support the government in the council.

The degree and intensity of interference varies from one election to another, depending on the desire to pass crucial issues, such as the revision of the constitution, as happened in the 1981 elections, so constituencies were fragmented from 10 to 25, to increase the influence of smaller social entities. The government had much of what it wanted, and the elections lost a significant number of prominent politicians.

lackluster elections

Al-Najjar added - in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net - that the initial indicators of the upcoming elections will often be faint, as many candidates expressed their concern, and many also announced their non-participation, in contrast to the participation of the majority of those who boycotted previously because of the one-vote law.

There are several factors pushing for the upcoming elections to be impersonal, the first of which is that the authority - for the first time - since the 1963 elections takes the initiative for electoral reform, to gain ground, not only at the popular level, but even critical voices turned to praise, and announced measures that exceeded the demands The announced, appointing a new prime minister, not interfering in the elections, not voting for the presidency and committees, voting according to the civil ID, new regions, addressing sub-sections and buying votes.

All of these measures, if implemented, will make it a transitional phase, as it seeks to restore the lost confidence in the political climate.

"We have to deal with the upcoming elections as a transitional phase, from a state of political impasse, to a phase that may witness a breakthrough," he added.

The entrance to the Kuwaiti National Assembly (Al-Jazeera)

It is worth noting that Article 107 of the Kuwaiti Constitution stipulates that the Emir of the country may dissolve the National Assembly by a decree stating the reasons for the dissolution, provided that the Assembly may not be dissolved for the same reasons again, and if the Assembly is dissolved, elections for the new parliament must be held no later than two months from the date of the dissolution And if the elections are not held during that period, the dissolved council regains its full constitutional authority and meets immediately as if the dissolution had not occurred, and continues its work until the new council is elected.