Word: emirs
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Since becoming independent from Britain in 1961, Kuwait has enjoyed the greatest democracy and freest press in the gulf region -- which is not saying much. The last parliament, elected in 1985, was suspended by the Emir in 1986 largely because it began to act like the U.S. Congress. Its sin: investigating the financial affairs of senior government officials. The Emir also imposed a press censorship that continues to this day. Pressure against the government's autocratic tendencies began to rise in 1990, so the Emir created a National Council, an assembly that could question policy but not legislate. The council...
Seven opposition groups have joined to protest the council's existence and urge that the old, suspended parliament be reinstated. Few Kuwaitis seem to care. By calling the council back, the Emir hoped to establish a nonthreatening channel for complaints. He has not been disappointed. Within days of the council's convocation, its members began receiving letters from citizens urging that it probe specific areas. The opposition may pine for the old parliament, but the populace appears content to treat the council as a legitimate avenue of expression (especially since it is as eager as the Emir to restore...
...another adroit move, the Emir has called for an entirely new parliament to be elected in October 1992. "Too far away," says Abdullah al-Nibari, an opposition leader. But again, few seem to care so long as a date has been set. "In all of this," admits a U.S. diplomat, "the anti-Sabah factions have been hurt by President Bush's saying that the gulf war was not fought in order to bring democracy to Kuwait. The Secretary of State has admitted that Kuwait's government is not 'the optimum type of regime,' but when the President, who's considered...
Most of the opposition favors extending the vote to both later-arriving Kuwaitis and women, but there are indications that the Emir will steal their thunder by broadening the franchise himself. "We have botched almost everything since liberation," says Abdul Rahman al-Awadi, the Prime Minister's adviser, "but through politics we now have a chance to recoup...
...Emir has declared that a "rightly guided society lets neither the criminal go unpunished nor the innocent bear the blame for others," but Kuwait has already expressed its preference for punishment. As for U.S. Ambassador Edward Gnehm's observation that "no matter how emotionally difficult it is, Kuwaitis must now champion justice and fairness for all people in Kuwait in the same way the entire world stood for those principles for Kuwaitis," well, Gnehm must share a speechwriter with the Emir...