Agencies
Kuwait City
Voters in Kuwait returned most of their lawmakers to parliament in the third election in as many years amid widespread frustration with the ongoing political gridlock, according to results released on Wednesday. The new parliament nearly mirrors the one elected last year that had a majority opposition presence.
According to the results announced on Wednesday by the official Kuwait News Agency, opposition politicians won 29 of the legislature’s 50 seats, and 37 lawmakers retained their seats.
Authorities did not release an official turnout figure, which analysts had expected to be low. Politicians belonging to the loosely defined opposition won 29 seats.
"People voted the same because they feel that the parliament wasn’t given enough time to try to effect change,” said Courtney Freer, a visiting professor of Middle Eastern studies at Emory University.
"They feel like there’s nothing wrong with the legislature and that what was wrong was its relationship with the unelected cabinet and blame it for more of the gridlock.”
The last election, held in September, delivered a mandate for change, with a majority of incumbents exiting the chamber. But in March, the Constitutional Court annulled the decree dissolving the previous assembly, restoring the body that had been elected in 2020. The ruling family then dissolved that chamber a second time, setting up this week’s vote.
Only one woman was elected to the 50-member assembly this time around, while the last parliament had two and the one before it was entirely male.
Marzouq al-Ghanim, an influential politician who served as speaker in the 2020 parliament, could soon return to his office after being re-elected
Al-Ghanim is likely to face off against Ahmed al-Saadoun, a veteran opposition politician who served as speaker of the 2022 parliament.
Al-Saadoun held onto his seat but received less than half the 12,000 votes he secured last September. "The support of (al-Saadoun) is very well, this is the return of the 2022 parliament, not the 2020 parliament, and many of the key supporters of Marzouq al-Ghanim lost,” said Kristin Diwan, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. "But I would never count Marzouq al-Ghanim out of anything, he’s very savvy and definitely came out in a top position in this election.”Voters in Kuwait have returned most of their lawmakers to parliament in the third election in as many years