Candidates ... types of subversion of the democratic process
“SOME candidates try to get elected to the National Assembly, through various means – by holding illegal by-elections, spreading rumors, tweets on their personal accounts, attack, praise, building alliances, shuttling between electoral districts and dancing on all tight ropes, forgetting that the formula for success is the same and that some successes are a failure, and some failures are successes,” columnist Saleh Ghazal Al-Anezi wrote for Al-Jarida daily.
Although such actions and sayings may be partially or totally justified by some according to the inclinations, desires and whims, the bad thing is when the candidate exceeds all the permissible rules, and lowers the level of competition by indulging in vote-buying, injustice is done to the electoral process because the attempts to win a seat are illegal. To win the seat, some attempt to destroy some norms of societal values and crosses red lines and this violates the rights and duties of the system of citizenship.
“A few days ago, I read a tweet by one of the creative personalities, and he conducted a calculation to sell the votes through which he proved the possibility of the buyer (candidate) become an MP for years and the one sold the vote gets five hundred dinars. In a simple calculation the seller earns a quarter of a dinar per day.
I also asked a friend if he had participated in the by-elections of his tribe a few days ago, and his reply was negative, so I said, ‘Certainly, you were afraid of Corona’, and then I jokingly criticized him for not being loyal to the tribe.
His stern reply was, ‘We may accept that the candidate violates the social distancing law because he will win a seat, but is it worthy for others who violate the law by participating in the by-elections and get infected?’
“This is because the candidates are just two but the lunatics are two thousand, and permanent losers in the process are the crazy voters, because success in the elections is like a commercial enterprise where a price tag is put on the product, and the price is always subject to the value. If the value of success is less, the price of the voter and the prestige of the deputy decrease.
“Therefore, if many merchants, dignitaries and academics, enter the election battlefield, they use various means to win, but they never fall to the level of buying votes, not because they respect values, but because they are looking for a seat that is too big to be bought with money, since only the hungry are satisfied with crumb, and any council in which the number of members of the crumbs increases its value and its achievements decreases, and it becomes power deprived or forfeited.
Perhaps the byelections are the least disruptive to the democratic process, as they are characterized by some factional democracy outside the law of course, although it perpetuates the factional tendency and directs the efforts of deputies at the interests of some at the expense of the homeland, but these elections do not contribute to the spread of the phenomenon of vote-buying, or allow controlling the desires of those aspiring to contest.
“While the spread of some negative phenomena is much more dangerous than the by-elections, and they may be equal or close to the phenomenon of vote-buying, and among these phenomena is spreading an atmosphere of intimidation under the pretext that a candidate may harm the chances of success of another candidate from the same faction, tribe, or sect.
This unjustified pressure or intimidation fails to persuade the candidate to concede to the other candidate on the basis that the chance of his success is real and certain. It is only a disease of interests or a disease of envy.
Among these phenomena is also an attempt to weaken the supporters of the candidate because of his candidacy in a district other than his own, as if the constitution or the law does not allow this, although such a thing is repeated frequently even among the successful representatives.”
Also:
“French President Emmanuel Macron provoked more than a billion and a half Muslims when he targeted Islam by saying Islam is living in a crisis today everywhere in the world and needs to be reconstructed and there are those who want to establish a parallel system of government in France,” columnist Abdulaziz Al-Fadhli wrote for Al-Rai daily.
“During his speech, Macron repeated dozens of times the word Islam, Islamic radicalism and political Islam and called for France to confront what he called Islamic separatism.
“Unfortunately, we did not find any appropriate response from the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Arab League, the Muslim World League, or most of the Islamic governments to this convulsive speech of the French president.
“And unfortunately, we find that the accusation is ready against Islam, with every incident committed by any Muslim extremist, even though those who adopt extremist ideology in our Islamic world do not exceed one percent.
“It is strange and weird that we do not hear talk about Christian terrorism – for example – when a Christian extremist commits a massacre or a crime against innocent Muslims, as happened in the attack on a mosque in New Zealand last year, which led to the martyrdom of more than 50 Muslims, including women, children and the elderly people.
“The French president should not have embarrassed himself in talking about Islamic extremism, because the history of his country is stained with the blood of innocent people.
“France killed more than five million Muslims during its occupation of Algeria, guillotined a group of resistance fighters, and sent them to the museums of France.
“France is considered one of the most active supportive of the massacres committed against civilians in the Republic of Mali by the mercenaries. That is why we say to the French President ‘Whoever lives in a glass house, should not throw stones at other people’s homes’.
“We also say to him: ‘If Islam is in a deep crisis worldwide – as you claim – then we would not have found it the most widespread religion in the world. I read a wonderful tweet on Twitter by Dr. Abdul Mohsen Zaban Al-Mutairi, in which he indicated that a British female journalist was captured in Afghanistan and after her release she converted to Islam, and an Italian hostage who was caught in Somalia after her return, she converted to Islam, and a French advocate who was captured in Mali after her release she declared her conversion to Islam.
“The light of Islam will remain until the Day of Judgment, and Macron will disappear, as will many of his ilk who are hostile to Islam.”
“Debates and demands are increasing about the importance of providing guarantees for the integrity of the upcoming elections, creating the appropriate atmosphere to be a new and good start for the new era, and avoiding the major failures we have seen in the nation’s councils that have passed through the country in the last few years,” columnist Abdulmohsen Jouma’a wrote for Al-Jarida daily.
“For these demands and requirements to be fulfilled, there must be a neutral government, or it should not suffer from offense and rivalries with political blocs or MPs. This is not available in the current government, as most of its members were interrogated, involved in violent arguments during the discussions of their interrogations, and no-confidence motions were submitted against them.
“Most ministers had rounds of requesting the Parliament’s approval to bypass requests to cast confidence in them and strengthen their political positions. This resulted in entitlements, and perhaps, debts that must be repaid to those who submitted to them. This put some ministers in a position of weakness.
“The safest way is to form a mini-government to oversee the upcoming elections, regardless of the interpretations and news that are circulating – the most important of which is Al-Jarida newspaper – about the irregularities involving some ministers in terms of appointments, promotions and transfers for electoral reasons, as well as the issue of electoral restrictions that were fortified due to the negligence of some ministers.”
“Mina Mubarak is a Kuwaiti port on Kuwaiti land that was mainly created to serve Kuwait and neighboring countries such as Iraq and Iran. It was not created with the intention of harassing neighbors, as some Iraqi political figures claimed in their continuous conflict with the Iraqi government,” columnist Sami Abdulatif Al-Nisf wrote for Annahar daily.
“The best that the Kuwaiti and Iraqi governments can do in their bilateral relations is to present goodwill. The relationship between the two brotherly countries, extending for centuries, has not witnessed anything disturbing in its description except a few years in general. This is not comparable to the periods of intimacy in the relationship between the peoples of the two countries who are united by ties of religion, nationalism, lineage and common interests.
“Past experiences have proven that the outstanding issues between the two countries in the end caused extraordinary losses for both parties. These losses are not commensurate with the value of what they disagreed on, so we must - in Kuwait and Iraq - be keen on a relationship based on the profit-profit equation, from which our peoples could benefit, especially with the upcoming huge challenges.
“We have to move away from the methodology of the pre-2003 regime in Iraq, which was always based on the relationship of loss-loss, until the defunct tyrant lost his life because of this clumsy and destructive policy.”