Kuwait's political morass

Kuwait has again plunged into political crisis with efforts underway to reconstitute the government, after the cabinet tendered its resignation over parliamentary efforts to hold the prime minister to account for alleged misdeeds.

Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who retains full executive authority in the reformed Kuwaiti governance structure, demurred before deciding to accept the cabinet's resignation.

His call for the reappointment of outgoing prime minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah almost certainly presages further conflict between the parliamentary opposition and government.

While the political crisis peaked with parliamentary efforts to question the prime minister on his alleged mismanagement, and for allowing a banned Iranian Shia cleric to enter the country, more fundamental issues are at stake.

"I think that this is more of a symptom of a larger issue of the legislature trying to gain more power in the Kuwaiti political system," Professor F Gregory Gause III from the University of Vermont told ISN Security Watch.

Chatham House's Professor Gerd Nonneman agreed, "It is a combination, on one hand, of grandstanding on the part of various MPs who want to make their name and, on the other hand, a genuine conviction that some of the things that the government gets up to are not properly accounted for or aren't appropriate in Islamic terms - when you are talking about some of the Islamist MPs," he told ISN Security Watch.

Stalemate

Kuwait's political system is caught betwixt and between the traditional authoritarianism of Gulf monarchic and emirate rule and full representational government under a constitutional monarchy. It is the tensions created by the failure to find a stable middle path that has led to ongoing political stalemate and repeated governance breakdowns.

The 50-seat unicameral National Assembly – which expands to up to 66 members through the presence of unelected cabinet members – is empowered to oversee the budget and pass legislation.

Through a formal parliamentary questioning process, known as interpellation, the Assembly is also able to encourage the ouster of ministers, via subsequent no-confidence measures.

The premier, who is a direct appointee of the emir, is not subject to no-confidence motions. However, it is clear from the recent crisis over Sheikh Nasser's planned interpellation and a similar questioning attempt in 2006 that led directly to elections, that the ruling family is currently unwilling to allow the Assembly to win an important symbolic victory through formally chastising a standing prime minister.

"Because of the nature of the political system that exists now, it means that any parliamentary scrutiny that leads to scrutinizing the government is effectively opposition and the government […] or the royal family is on the other side," Nonneman noted in explaining the ongoing legislature-government standoff.

While theoretically inferior to some regional legislatures, the Kuwaiti parliament enjoys greater effective clout. Other powers include signing off on prime ministerial cabinet selections and involvement in determining the identity of the crown prince – a power that grants the Assembly a key role in choosing the future emir.

Neither the ruling family nor parliament appear to favor fresh polls at this time, which would not ease tensions and would be costly to the political blocs and individuals forced to seek a new popular mandate so soon after legislative elections in May. The polls came after the emir dissolved parliament in March due to ongoing government-parliament tensions.

The tumult surrounding parliamentary prerogatives and the seeming institutionalization of the standoff between government and parliament bodes ill for both domestic and regional reform efforts.  

Palace factionalism?

Opposing factions and figures within the ruling al-Sabah family have allegedly pressed opposition MPs to question ministers in an effort to bolster their own prospects of replacing the incumbents, according to media reports.

The importance of factional political power plays within the family was demonstrated in January 2006 when Sheikh Sabah replaced the late Sheikh Saad al-Abdullah al-Sabah, who had ruled as emir for just over a week, without being officially confirmed.

The ouster upset the regular transition of power between the two main branches of the royal family, but any resultant tensions appear to have had little political salience.

Asked if factionalism within the ruling family contributes to political instability in Kuwait, Nonneman said, "I don't think it does particularly.

"Of course there are different views within the royal family about where this democratic experiment should go; whether it should be rolled back or not. And of course there is also competition between various people for future top jobs. But that is not really the cause of the current problems," he said.

Key portfolios in the Kuwaiti cabinet are reserved for prominent members of the ruling family. Thus, the competition for factional influence within the al-Sabah dynasty is the true contest for power in the absence of more determined political reform processes. The balancing of intra-family tensions is a key task for the emir.

"Now that is the kind of thing that you are never going to get conclusive evidence on because family matters tend to very much be kept close to the vest," Gause said, adding, "even if it is exaggerated it has become a factor in people's political calculations."

Failed reform

Electoral district reform in 2006 brought the number of constituencies down from 25 to five, fulfilling a long-sought demand of the political opposition, backed by a strong popular campaign dubbed the Orange Movement.

The sharp diminution of electorates was sought to undermine a purported process whereby parliamentary deputies were often elected by slim majorities and a narrow core of support, leading to complaints of both undue influence and vote-buying from within limited constituency pools.

"It was a stirring, bottom-up political reform that as far as I can tell has had absolutely no effect on the way politics is conducted or even the people who are in the legislature," Gause said.

Some analysts believe that the reformed constituencies over-represent affluent elements of the population who are unlikely to favor the extension of legislature prerogatives, while having minimal impact on the alleged bias and improprieties the measure was designed to address. 

It is now clear that fiddling with the process whereby members are elected to parliament will not, of itself, bring the necessary changes required to ease the Kuwaiti political stalemate, which ultimately is an issue of power being withheld from the legislature itself.

Asked what impact the electorate rezoning had on easing the political paralysis Nonneman said, "None at all. The only impact was, ultimately, that the elections were seen to be more legitimate.

"I guess some of the parliamentarians concluded from that that they had greater power or legitimacy. So maybe that gave them [more] determination to push their case," he said.

Multiple tendencies

The constitutional ban on political parties has cast a pall over efforts to develop a truly representative governance structure, with the balance between small, loosely affiliated tribal, sectarian Islamist and liberal opposition blocs shifting on an issue-specific basis.

The resultant fragmentation while promoting damaging dissensus, has failed to stop opposition legislators from the various tendencies – some organized in de-facto parties - from banding together in a manner that has effectively paralyzed the government.

Gause identifies five organized tendencies within the Kuwaiti legislature, "Salafi Islamists, Muslim Brotherhood Sunni Islamists, Shia Islamists and, for want of a better term, liberals." He also included pro-government MPs, many of whom share the socially conservative stances of the Islamic blocs.

Alongside these small established blocs "there are all sorts of independents who, I think the voters know kind of where they side but they don't affiliate with any of the organized groups," Gause said.

He also stated that due to politics happening behind parliament's closed doors and not in public, as with a real parliamentary democracy, it is hard to determine the political winners and losers in elections.

Salafism on the rise

Salafi and tribal representatives were the big winners in the May poll, with the former seeming to draw support from Kuwait's wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Constitutional Movement (Hadas).

HADAS has been thoroughly integrated into the Kuwaiti political mainstream a fact that appears to have allowed it to be outflanked by the more hard-line Salafi elements.

Indeed, the relatively poor performance of Hadas in the May election, when taken alongside similar reverses for the Brotherhood's Moroccan and Jordanian wings, has been seen by some analysts, who talked to ISN Security Watch, as signaling that the Brotherhood regionally may be on the verge of decline.

This is perhaps too broad a reading and is one that ignores vast differences in national wealth and resultant social conditions across the region. The Kuwaiti shift away from the Brotherhood has not been as substantial or irreversible as often presented – though it does bring up the salient issue of the impact of institutionalization on popular support for Islamic movements.

Referring to the mainstream status of Hadas, Nonneman added, "Unless the government shuts the political experiment down altogether, I think many of the Salafis will evolve in a similar kind of direction. Kuwait is not the kind of environment where extreme radicals will get much of a chance."
 
Islamic parties' efforts to promote a conservative religious, educational and social reform agenda have created significant ruptures with the small liberal bloc in parliament on issues such as women's rights – creating rifts often exploited by recurrent governments.

Where emirs have been unable to play on the latent tensions between the somewhat amorphous competing opposition blocs they have, over the decades, chosen the path of firing ministers, reforming governments and, in fewer cases, the dissolution or suspension of the legislature as a whole.

"In each case the emir says, "Right, let's suspend parliament" or "We move this minister." And the upshot of this is that no serious decision-making is done over the long-term," Nonneman said.

Worryingly, this tendency toward governance failure and pattern of collapse and reconstitution has picked up pace in recent years, a fact that speaks to the ultimately untenable nature of the current balance of competing political forces in the absence of more substantial reform, or autocratic regression.

Reform prospects

It is difficult to foresee a viable future for the political reform process in Kuwait in which the ruling family fails to divest itself of power more determinedly through allowing legislators to play an increasing role in government.

"I think that there would have to be a really big change in Kuwait for that to happen – constitutional changes – and I don't really see them on the horizon," Gause said.

"There'll be a bargain I think in the end," he said, "Maybe it will be more elected legislators getting cabinet positions."

The ongoing stalemate with parliament is already undermining the emirate's efforts to promote economic reforms and address the impact of falling oil prices and the global economic downturn on the local economy. The local bourse has plummeted 30 percent in the last year, according to external pageReuterscall_made, amid concerns regarding the government's failure to appoint a market regulator.

Nevertheless, the Kuwaiti reform experiment is worth encouraging and extending. Important markers have been achieved in recent years including women's emancipation and partial press liberalization, while the parliament's ability to criticize and hold to account government members is unprecedented in the Gulf states.

The overall success of the reformed Kuwaiti political structure is of pivotal importance in determining both the future trajectory and stability of the state and prospects for the future extension of civil and democratic reforms in fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. 

Given that this would directly impact on both the executive authority of the emir and prospects for advancement of competing al-Sabah factions and individuals, the chances for significant further reform advances do not appear good at present.