On Thursday, September 29, Kuwaitis are awaiting the 18th National Assembly elections in the history of a parliamentary process that began with the beginning of the Constituent Assembly in 1961.

It is expected that these elections will answer several questions, including: What is the impact of the civil ID voting system for the first time in the history of the council elections?

Will this result in the presence of new faces, including women's faces who were absent from the previous assembly?

Did the candidates provide enough to convince the voters to vote for them, whether through their electoral programs or the promises they made in their electoral campaigns and public symposiums?

social incubator

Political analyst Fahd Al-Habini believes that the majority of candidates for the upcoming National Assembly elections have ideas, but they are not sufficient by themselves to reach the parliament through them. Electoral work.

Al-Habini said - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that "the social incubator is the basis at the beginning of the candidate's career, but the issue of the criterion of differentiation between the programs remains, but it is not essential, so we note the candidate's dependence on his social incubator, and then on the events that may occur during the elections, which It may have an impact on the results, but it is not part of the candidate's programme."

🚨 #Kuwait elects Thursday 9-29 in pivotal elections by direct secret ballot 50 members of the National Assembly 17-2022- amid cautious optimism, seriously correcting the path out of the bottleneck of the political horizon that led to the dissolution and abolition of 10 national councils and shortened the life of governments for months!


🚨 Exam in the composition of the National Assembly and the Ministers

— Abdullah Al Shayji Prof (@docshayji) September 27, 2022

He added, "The lofty speech delivered by His Highness, the Crown Prince, on behalf of His Highness the Amir on June 22, drew the direction and the map for the candidates, and they focused on it, which is that the voters have the right to choose on the polling day, so they choose the strong, honest, who fears God and loves the country. Candidates in their campaigns on this point."

Al-Habini continued, "And we do not forget that the issuance of a decree that is necessary to vote with the civil ID for the first time confused the accounts of all candidates, because it entered thousands of voters in the electoral rolls, and this led to the transfer of thousands of their former constituencies to other constituencies they were forced to move to because of their places of residence, and until this moment there is no The attendance rate and minimum pass rate in each department are still unclear.

Promises and manipulation of emotions

In turn, political analyst Abdul Rahim Hussein believes that "there is no such thing as an electoral program, because there are no parties, so those who represent the constitutional movement, Salafism or the Shiites do not have clear programmes, and what he notices only are populist promises made to win votes and manipulate their emotions."

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Hussein said, "During this period, we noticed an increase in the tribal tone and the existence of an unacceptable tribal conflict in such an atmosphere, and the wise men should intervene to stop the conflict between the sons of the same tribe, and in these elections the candidates had no role in ending the transactions of the voters as was the case previously. Hence, their influence was limited.


He added, "These elections will be held with the civil ID, and I think that the voters will go to the polls to take revenge on the representatives who failed them in the previous assembly, who did not achieve what they promised, and some of them wasted a lot of the life of the previous assembly because of the controversy among them, and then the spirit of revenge will be present in these elections. Also, none of the representatives spoke about an interrogation, an economic project, the housing issue, the international situation, or the hot conditions surrounding our region.

Hussein pointed out that the civil card voting decree played a major role in removing many people from their previous electoral districts, "For example, in the Jabriya area, we used to see people we did not know come to the area during the elections only to vote, and now they will not be able to vote as before thanks to The government, in its new era, eliminated this issue. The decree returned each person to vote according to his area of ​​residence as recorded in the civil ID, and this decree was a surprise and a painful blow to some representatives who had previously transferred the votes of voters to their electoral districts.

He pointed out that these elections will be pivotal, because they will determine the outcomes of the new voting decree, and will be surprising to many people because of the distribution of votes.

social affiliation

For her part, Lawyer Areej Hamadeh indicated that it is likely that the majority of winners in the National Assembly elections will come from tribes and Islamic currents, because they represented the majority in the previous parliament as well as opponents of the government.

Hamada added to Al Jazeera Net, "Unfortunately, the voting policy is usually for the sake of the family, friendship, sect or tribe without paying attention to the electoral programs of the candidates, so the level of the Kuwaiti parliament declined due to this type of policy in voting, although the voter himself demands the need for change, Nevertheless, he gives his vote to the candidate himself.

Abdul Rahim Hussein: During this period, we noticed an increase in the tribal tone (Kuwaiti press)

As for the former candidate for the National Assembly, Hanan Al-Saeed, explained that the factors likely to win the candidates in the National Assembly elections are the continuous social contact with the people of the constituency, and the biography in Parliament. The general election to the electorate and the change in their view of the candidates in general. Young people think differently from the elderly and retired category, and their share in the electoral space has increased.

Al-Saeed indicated in her speech to Al-Jazeera Net that the National Assembly elections in Kuwait are the product of social screening because there are no programs for candidates, and there are no parties, and therefore "we participate in the elections by social affiliation, and it is natural for the voter to be affected by these affiliations," stressing that the voting decree With the civil card, he changed many accounts, and he will inevitably have an effect, but no one can predict the strength and degree of this influence.

313 candidates in the electoral race

It is noteworthy that 313 male and female candidates are competing in the race for the seats in the next National Assembly, while the number of votes cast in the five constituencies who have the right to go to the polls to cast their votes is 795,911 male and female voters.

The previous National Assembly elections 2020 witnessed 326 candidates - 29 of them female candidates - competing for parliamentary seats, with the participation of 380,758 voters in the polling process. At that time, the elections resulted in the success of 31 new faces, while 19 deputies from the 2016 parliament retained their seats.

The Council was dissolved on August 2, 2022 as a result of the lack of cooperation between the legislative and executive authorities in the country.