The most recent issue
Kuwait will be facing many challenges in the few coming years regardless if the coming parliament will remain in office for four years or less. Locally, Kuwait is likely to become incapable of paying salaries out of its income soon. There are also possible educational problems if expatriate teachers refuse to work in Kuwait. The health ministry was devastated by Ali AlObaidi, while Kuwaiti sports activities’ suspension deprives our youth from representing their country, in addition to many other concerns.
Internationally, the world is very close to finding alternatives to oil produced by regional countries, the Middle East is rapidly changing in view of accelerating regional conflicts, and the election of the new US president may also have an impact on the entire world.
Amidst such a vortex of problems and challenges, I find it unreasonable and unacceptable that most parliamentary election candidates’ campaign programs revolve around the most recent issue viewed by the previous parliament - which is the increase of petrol prices that is being used by them all, including those who approved it in the previous parliament and are now against it only for electoral reasons. Keeping talking about this issue only implies how shallow and visionless many candidates are, which is surely a very dangerous indicator about how things might be run in the future if these candidates make it to the next parliament.
A good follower and observer of the last five parliaments or more would easily notice people’s choices in subsequent elections were made according to the most recent issue discussed by the previous parliament. For instance, the 2006 parliament was elected upon candidates’ adoption of calls to follow the five-constituency electoral system. Elected MPs approved the bill and then started fighting and fragmenting over it.
In the 2008 parliament, selection was made upon adoption of calls to increase payrolls, and as soon as this was approved, we went into the Dow conflict, upon which the following selection was made. In the first annulled parliament of 2012, selection was made based on those in favor of dismissing the former PM and an unprecedented majority was formed, but was very random, blundering and lost, which was revealed to everybody within only four months.
Nowadays, we either do the same thing again and try to follow the same path with hopes of achieving different results, or look for other more serious options with more depth that can be worthy of true parliamentary membership that is capable of facing the current challenges and circumstances threatening us. But changing faces alone is not enough unless it is accompanied with new serious visions and real reflections of ideas that would push the country forward, because this is how countries prosper.
Candidate Waleed Al-Tabtabaei held his first electoral seminar under the slogan ‘Everything Except the Holy Mosque!’, a topic chosen in view of press headlines on the previous day. Three other candidates took part in the seminar. That seminar and its title prove the lack of vision they suffer from, because the fact its title was based on a news story published a day earlier makes us wonder: What if the story was not published then?!