The Administrative Court Sunday rejected the appeals filed by a number of Parliament hopefuls, including former MPs Khalaf Dumaithir and Khalid Al-Shulaimi, against the Election Commission’s decision to disqualify them from the upcoming elections.
The court, however, annulled the disqualification of former MP Mohammad Al-Huwailah and candidate Sultan Al-Shimmari and allowed them to contest the July 27, 2013 polls. The candidate hopefuls whose petitions were rejected have a chance to fast-track appeals at the Court of Appeals before Election Day on Saturday.
Meanwhile, former MP and First Constituency candidate Dr Maasouma Al-Mubarak stressed Kuwait has overcome the difficult stage during which persistent tensions, street demonstrations and absence of good dialogue prevailed.
She said, “All of us were subdued over what happened in Kuwait in the previous stage, but HH the Amir was able to pull Kuwait out of a destructive plan called the ‘Arab Spring’ which has already destroyed many Arab communities.”
Speaking at her political rally dubbed ‘We don’t have anything like Kuwait’, Dr Mubarak said the one-vote decree has rescued the country from the dark tunnel that was dug by the opposition “but we succeeded in turning over a gloomy page through participation of Kuwaitis in the previous election especially voters from the First Constituency who recorded the biggest percentage of votes among the other constituencies.”
She said the opposition group had gradually weakened and disintegrated the country which was on the verge of being lost in the oblivion because of the refusal of the opposition to be rational. She said the country is undoubtedly passing through an unprecedented situation of instability which has led to lack of progress.
She explained seven parliamentary elections were held in 10 years, six of them in just 6 years in addition to forming eight governments during this period. If the situation was stable there could be only three elections and three governments during this period, which is an indication of lack of stability in which development cannot take place.
She pointed out that Kuwait and Dubai had started studying the railways projects at the same time, but Dubai has nearly completed its project while Kuwait is still in the stage of studying this project “so we need to witness change and we should be those who would make this change,” she added.
For her part, former MP and Third Constituency candidate Safa’a Al-Hashim stressed humans particularly the young are the resource of any society and lifting the standard of the youth is regarded as the backbone for development and the key player for its achievement.
She said the current government lacks the ability to implement the laws and although the annulled Parliament was able to pass a number of laws they are still awaiting implementation by the government. “This behavior sounds strange and has been disapproved by the citizens,” she said.
Touching on the issue of unemployment, Al-Hashim called the unemployment in Kuwait an ‘invented crisis’ because the government, she said, can solve it but doesn’t want to, “especially that unemployment is at the bottom of its priorities in addition to ignoring many issues concerning the youth.”
She called for the need to create job opportunities for the youths and invest their capacities to lift the country and implement development plan as well as supporting them financially to start engaging in small and medium enterprises. She called on the government to implement the small and medium enterprise law to benefit the youths.
Fifth Constituency candidate Sultan Al-Boos stressed that the development projects will not take off except through effective legislation.
He added the Kuwaiti society currently has reached a stage of depression and instability that is magnified by the deterioration of services in all sectors.
Al-Boos said the problem of unemployment and inequality in pay has become worrisome to all family heads.
He noted 30,000 youths may be unemployed by 2015 and that there are 80,000 requests for housing and no solutions are in sight.
By Abubakar A. Ibrahim and Nihal Sharaf
Arab Times Staff
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By: Abubakar A. Ibrahim and Nihal Sharaf
