Govt will only debate ‘constitutional’ grilling

KUWAIT: The National Assembly will debate the grilling of HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah today, as the government is expected to demand deleting a number of “unconstitutional” issues in the two grillings. The premier faces a variety of accusations in the two grillings filed by five opposition lawmakers. The two will be debated on the same day, to be followed by the debate of a third grilling against State Minister for Housing Affairs Yasser Abul. These are the first questionings against the prime minister in this Assembly, elected in November.

Justice Minister Faleh Al-Azab said the government will accept to debate “what is constitutional and reject what is unconstitutional”, a clear reference that one of the two grillings contains issues not in line with the constitution. He said the government will not accept to deal with issues against the constitution. The government has a strong backing in the Assembly and is certain to win any vote in the Assembly over the grilling. It is even backed by a good number of opposition MPs who believe that the grillings were not filed at an appropriate time.

Even if the two grillings are debated in full, the grillers will find it difficult to secure the support of 10 MPs to sign on a non-cooperation motion against the prime minister. If they manage to secure the required 10 signatures to file the non-cooperation motion, it is impossible to secure the required 25 votes to approve the motion, especially with many opposition lawmakers rejecting such a motion at this time.

MP Mohammad Al-Dallal said yesterday that the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM), the main opposition bloc in the Assembly, does not believe that filing a non-cooperation motion against the prime minister now is appropriate. The two grillings accuse the government of the prime minister of mismanagement, squandering public funds, imposing new charges on citizens and revoking citizenships of political opponents.

But in an attempt to discredit the grillers at least over the citizenship issue, a special committee formed by the government to study reinstating revoked citizenships issued a statement saying it will resolve the issue soon. The committee said it has received 184 applications from people who had their citizenships revoked by the government, adding it will soon start studying the applications in order of priority. The statement attempts to show that the government is serious about reinstating the revoked citizenships.

Also, the four opposition figures who had their citizenships revoked by the government almost three years ago issued a statement demanding that their cases should not be involved in the political crisis.

The liberal National Democratic Movement said in a statement that it feels the four figures were pressurized to issue the statement. The statement demanded the reasons of revoking the citizenships and the legal mechanism of returning them must be made public and those responsible must be held to account. The latest developments are likely to trigger an intense political crisis in the country, although the survival of the prime minister is certain.

In the Assembly session yesterday, MPs agreed to ask the Assembly’s environment committee to investigate the mass death of fish in Kuwaiti waters in the past few weeks. They asked the committee to submit its report within one month.