By Iman Al-Houti, KUNA
Kuwait : Kuwaitis are divided regarding assessment of the five-constituency system upon which the next parliamentary elections will be, with one party hoping that the new regime will result in electing qualified figures and the other deeply concerned that it may lead to new problems.
The constituencies’ regime has constituted a major factor in the political history of the country since formation of the first legislative assembly in 1962, when the polling was held on the basis of the 10-constituency regime, giving the voter the right to cast five ballot papers, a matter that facilitated formation of political blocs and lists.
This system was maintained till 1981, when elections for seats in the National Assembly were held for the first time after a long absence of parliamentary activities, but this poll was held according to the 25-district system, a regime that drew waves of criticisms and arguments that it effectively constituted the fertile ground for emergence of the so-called services’ parliamentarians, spread of vote purchasing and holding of primary polls.
The 2008 elections will be the first such parliamentary experience in line with the five-constituency system, that was established following wide-scale calls to review the previous one, largely blamed for various negative dimensions of previous polling processes.
Opining on the new sytem, political sciences professor at Kuwait University Dr. Abdullah Al-Ghanem told KUNA in an interview that the five-region system would certainly affect “the nature of electoral tactics and qualifications of the nominees … this experience will result in both negative and positive practices according to which judging whether it is better than the old one will be made.” On the prospected positive dimensions, Dr. Al-Ghanem expressed his belief that it would limit purchase of votes, for the new system would compel such nominees who depend on money to secure the path to the parliamentary seat to allocate huge funds to win votes among tens of thousands of voters, compared to the previous system where the candidate would only spend moderate amounts of money considering the limited size of the electorate.
Moreover, the new system will compel the candidates to address a much larger electorate basis with diverse and divergent beliefs and intellectual orientations. As to the primaries, “it weakens control of some tribes on the ballot boxes of their constituencies as was the case according to the old division.”