Cabinet resigns; inaugural Assembly...

The government’s likely choice should be Ghanem, who cooperated very well with it in the previous Assembly, but new political realities could change the picture. The opposition members are expected to start holding meetings to form a bloc or a number of blocs in the Assembly and coordinate the election of the next speaker. Meetings are expected to take place before this weekend.

The National Democratic Alliance, a liberal opposition grouping, yesterday said it will not participate in the next government. The group, which normally participated with more than one minister, said its decision is based on the previous government’s performance, defending ministers with suspicions around them and the absence of accountability.

NDA also called for reading well the results of the election and set priorities for the new Assembly. It said its top priority is to work out a new election law which has political and popular support, completing the judicial independence legislation, reconsidering a draft law for political parties and scrapping the DNA testing and political exclusion laws. The alliance strongly criticized the existing voting system, saying it has fragmented the Kuwaiti society.

Islamist opposition MP Jamaan Al-Harbash, tipped to lead the opposition bloc, said the results of the election have strongly annoyed the government because of the failure of its voting system to produce a government majority, and also because of a strong opposition.