Manama: Kuwait’s outgoing parliament Speaker Marzouq Al Ganem has presented his application to run in the elections on November 26.
“We need to work harder and together as we deal with the numerous security and economic challenges in the country and beyond,” Al Ganem said in a statement to the media after he signed up his name.
“I hope that the next government will get along well with the new parliament as the higher interests of Kuwait should be above all other considerations.”
Al Ganem said he welcomed the participation of former lawmakers in next month’s elections after they decided to end their boycott.
“Reverting to do the right thing is a virtue, and this indicates that we were right to take part in the last elections. I wish the best of luck to all candidates and I do hope that we all rise above attacks and that we deal with our differences under the umbrella of the constitution.”
The people of Kuwait will decide who the next Speaker of the parliament will be, he added.
Al Ganem is among 60 candidates who won seats in previous elections.
So far, 36 lawmakers from the parliament elected in 2013 and dissolved this month have signed up to run again, while 12 were lawmakers in 2012 and another 12 from parliaments elected before that date.
As election fever is sweeping through Kuwait after opposition members have ended their boycott and filed to run, the hesitation of women remains worrying for activists keen on empowering them.
Six days into the registration process that ends on Friday, out of the 291 candidates vying for parliament seats, only nine are women.
More than ten years after Kuwaiti women obtained the right to vote and run in elections, the social obstacles to their full political empowerment are still in place, impeding their progress.
Women took part in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but they could not win any seat. However, they made an impressive breakthrough in 2009 by snatching four of the 50 seats.
Maasooma Al Mubarak, Salwa Al Jassar, Aseel Al Awadi and Rola Dashti made history by becoming the first Kuwaiti women to win in a parliamentary election.
In the 2012 February elections, no woman was able to win a seat, but in the December polls in the same year, three women were elected. However, only one of the eight women candidates won a seat in July 2013.
The percentage of women candidates in the 2013 elections was 11.5 per cent, the lowest since women were given the right to vote and run. The percentage was 11.1 per cent in 2006 when 28 women ran for seats.
