‘Eyes on new Iran leader and his relations with Muslim neighbors’
“IT WAS declared in Iran that the President-elect Ibrahim Raisi who is 61 years old won the presidential elections. He is said to have polled 61.95 percent of the votes to become the eighth president for the Islamic Republic of Iran since the Iranian Revolution of 1979,” columnist Dali Al-Khumsan wrote for Al-Anba daily.
“Raisi is a cleric and judge and is currently the chief of the Judiciary in his country. During his election campaign his slogan was fighting poverty and corruption and pledged to bring about what he called essential change in his country’s administration in addition to put an end to smuggling. He had also promised to increase the export of non-oil related products in addition to building four million housing units and creating one million job opportunities per annum.
“The cleric Ibrahim Raisi Al-Sadati, who is known only as Ibrahim Raisi was born in the city of Mashhad of Iran. He has the confidence of leader of the Iranian Revolution and the supreme spiritual leader Al-Sayed Ali Khamenei.
“In his first statement after his victory in the presidential election, Raisi, was quoted as saying ‘I hope to enjoy the confidence of the Iranian people who have elected me and I will cooperate with the government of President Hassan Rouhani by holding meetings with ministers to familiarize myself with their experiment’. He went on to say, ‘I will invite all local thinkers to submit their viewpoints over the management of the country’.
“However, the most important thing for us is the foreign policy with the Muslim countries neighboring Iran and its readiness to develop its relationship with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states and their peoples who are currently looking for peace, security, good life, reciprocal respect and sovereignty.
“Apart from the above, we say fighting terrorism is a popular demand for all of the peoples in the region in addition to the security. We shall guarantee luxury and the good standard of living for all of the people in this part of the world under peaceful co-existence and respect for sovereignty of their respective countries.
“In conclusion, we hereby appreciate the election of the Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi and wish him prosperity, goodness and rightness so that all people in the region can live in peace, tranquility and goodness.”
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“It is observed that all Kuwaitis are calling for change. It is observed that the demanded changes differ from one person to another,” columnist Abdulaziz Bu Mejdad wrote for Al-Shahed daily.
“In other words some people call for change in prime minister, while others call for ousting the speaker of the National Assembly, while yet others call for doing away with the prime minister and the speaker. On the other hand, we find some people say thanks God ‘We live a proper lives, with everything found. They hope the situation will remain as it is.
“Apart from the above, there are some other sectarian denominations who seek better life for their sect only without paying attention to the homeland even if it means their own interest at the expense of the public interest.
“It is needless to say I am not talking about these denominations; rather my concern is towards those who call for change, as such, I wonder what exactly they want to see in terms of change.
“However, if we go back to the so-called move of 2012 and related MPs, then we will find that the latter’s ambitions to get rid of the then prime minister Nasser Al-Mohammad, but his resignation opened the door for Jaber AlMubarak who followed the same method, or rather worse than Nasser and this was obvious through bankruptcy, corruption and failure that befell the country’s Reserve Fund.
“Moreover, the government failed to diversify the sources income and in the midst of all this, the embezzlers of public money managed to escape from the country to the UK with people’s money and all this happened during the reign of the said government while the country suffers from poor educational and health systems in addition to a poor infrastructure.
“Given the above, we should strive to surmount the mistakes of 2012. I do not doubt the intentions of the then opposition MPs, but I am sure the strategic mistake was committed because following the resignation of the former prime minister Nasser Al-Mohammad and failure to draw a new method for his successor to initiate reforms and plug loopholes that encouraged corruption.
“The reign of Jaber Al-Mubarak was worse than that of his predecessors, hence, the real objective which we as people strive to achieve, should be represented by creating a parliamentary opposition capable to changing the method and end corruption and the corrupt people who had a free hand during previous times.
“This can be done only through a radical change to keep in check the government practices and work on the basis of the Constitution and this means our Constitution also needs to be revised, particularly since we know that the issues of nationality, for instance, should not be at the ‘mercy’ of a single government official. The political decisions should be issued by politicians, provided they are in public interest.
“In other words, this decision should not come from the merchants and the influential people who are looking for their selfish interests. Likewise, the National Assembly should be an independent institution and eventually play its legislative power to control the government performance -- the executive power.”