Government should hit ground running

Opinion

IT has been more than one month since His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled was appointed to form a solid government, which seems to be delayed until the first week of next month.

Although this is unprecedented in the political history of the country, the careful cautiousness of His Highness the Prime Minister doesn’t amount to a burden on Kuwait, as the objective is to come out with a productive Cabinet.

In this framework, it is essential that my admonitions to the prime ministers, both publicly and privately, should be considered. It is about the need to learn from the experiences of other countries — Arab and non-Arab — such as Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria and Iran. The rampaging citizens of those countries have common reasons, which includes the deteriorating economic and political situations. They crave for technocrat governments, which are experts, rather than sharing the governance along political, sectarian or tribal lines.

This is the kind of government that Kuwait needs – a government that is capable of lifting the country from stumbling economically and politically, something that Kuwait has been suffering from due to the poor performances of the Parliament and government in the past, and bringing an end to the attendant losses.

The stake on Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled today is that all Kuwaitis know his hands are clean and his performance is excellent. Those who know him very well are aware that he does not rush to take decisions or make choices. His charisma deserves reckoning, in addition to his wide knowledge of the cultures of other societies, and international and regional friendship with strong ability to challenge parliamentary selfishness that has always been the bane of Kuwait.

In addition, his nominations from the ruling family to be included in the Cabinet formation up until this moment enjoy two important factors – first, they are young, and second, they are experienced technocrats. This implies putting round peg in a round hole.

This atmosphere gives a lot of confidence about the fact that the remaining nominees will be selected within that framework. This is an important accomplishment for Kuwait, because those people will not be submissive to the selfish figures and will not be intimidated by the long stick of grilling being dangled by the lawmakers. It means they will be decisive in taking actions.

Irrespective of the lifespan of the government, it will surely oversee the next parliamentary elections, which is one of the most difficult examinations for governments.

However, prior to that, the government should hit the ground running immediately after it gets the trust for treating many important files, especially for preparing a workable strategy for combating corruption.

Although it is a huge and complex file, which may take years, the basic thing is the approach introduced by the government to start dealing with it, even if in some instances it may require painful surgeries. This should be the foundation for the successive governments.

In this regard, the prevailing calm in the political arena should not be considered as a waste of time, but rather as commendable caution that is acceptable to the people and government, as previously said.