‘Kuwaitis waiting for different show ... failure not good for country’
“AS FOR the new government headed by Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled, and after the ‘white smoke’ appeared from the chimney of the selection room, it is for the white color to keep pace with the performance process because Kuwait can no longer tolerate confusion and the patience of Kuwaitis has already taken the beating,” columnist and Chairman of Board of Directors of Al-Rai, Jassem Boodai wrote for the daily.
“Far from personal interests, let’s put things in perspective as an introduction to a better understanding of the nature of the stage. We were, with the majority of Kuwaitis, and we are still up to this moment, Your Highness, President Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled, we oppose the performance and method of managing work, making decisions, the relationship with the legislative authority, and dealing with the major crises that the country has faced.
“And if you were asked, personally, about the results of your career at the head of three previous governments, your opinion as a Kuwaiti citizen would not have been different from the opinion of the majority of people.
“The examples are many and there is no need to talk about them in detail, but it is enough to say that your governments have turned the health pandemic into an economic and social pandemic, while the countries near and far have strongly supported the economic and social sectors to enable them to withstand and not collapse, just as it suffices to look at the level of services in the country, the backwardness of the administration and the people’s lack of confidence in change and reform.
“We will not elaborate on failures. Today, the political leadership has renewed its confidence in your person, and we have learned to respect the leadership’s decisions and its indisputable prerogatives.
“But everyone knows and you before others that this is your last government or the last chance to prove the following: The executive authority is worthy of moving Kuwait from an arena of political, economic, and administrative confusion to a region that is more stable, more advanced, more balanced, more incubating for its citizens and not repelling them and their businesses, attracting more investments.
“Here, the work that is expected is very huge to tackle the problems of the economy and streamline it instead of letting it be drowned by the weight of bureaucracy, red tape and restrictions.
“Here is the path that must be opened to the Kuwaiti youth and their projects, instead of leaving them between the limits of despair or emigration.
“Today, Kuwaitis are waiting for a real revolution in state administrations, and not just standing at the gates of ‘development’ and ‘improvement’ since mismanagement is the source of corruption.
“They are waiting for services to be strengthened in all sectors, including education, health, housing, works and many more.
“They are waiting for the ministers to be entrusted with change, not to restrict them as employees whose job is to reserve important positions in their ministries for intermediaries and at the expense of competencies, specialists and expertise.
“They are waiting for every minister to notice that he is the master of his decisions for the benefit of the entire nation he represents, and not to be left alone in the face of sectarian and tribal pressures being exerted on him and parliamentary threats directed at him, or under the feeling that his head is negotiable in a deal with a deputy or a group of representatives.
“They are waiting for cooperation with the nation’s representatives on the basis of achievement, without concessions, challenges, or abuses.
“Cooperation unleashes the wheels of laws and projects that interest people, as Kuwait may be the only country in the world where people’s interests are held hostage to the relationship between the two councils.
“These and other matters require courage from you and boldness, because they are all in the interest of Kuwait and the Kuwaitis. Develop an action program of commitment, a road map that cannot be deviated from, and an implementation tool that is subject to no one but the pleasure of God and conscience and the interests of Kuwait and its people.
“Your Highness, this is between the Kuwaitis and you. There was no personal issue and never will be. First and foremost, the issue is called Kuwait, and it is more important than all of us. If it is accomplished, you will find support from everyone, even though people’s satisfaction is an unattainable goal, and if the fourth authority’s mission and message fails, it always illuminates mistakes and demands that they be addressed.
“With the confidence of the leadership, the relative change in the general political climate, and the national need to face challenges quickly, Kuwaitis are waiting for a different performance, because the loss will not be limited to the government’s last chance, but will reflect more badly on the country and the people.”
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“After the collapse and disintegration of the Soviet Union, the countries of Eastern Europe enjoyed independence after being under its tutelage, and joined NATO,” columnist Sultan Ibrahim Al-Khalaf wrote for daily.
“However, the Islamic republics of Central Asia, despite their formal independence, remained locked up in Russian interference in their internal affairs and had a dictatorial character, and even suffered from the continuation of the restrictive policies on restoring their Islamic identity that they were deprived of over the past seven decades under the grip of atheistic communism, to the extent that the current ruling regime in Tajikistan, forbids naming children with Arabic names, closing hundreds of mosques, banning the wearing of headscarves in schools, imposing supervision of worshipers in the remaining mosques, and obstructing foreign missions related to Islamic studies.
“With President Vladimir Putin assuming power, he considered that the collapse of the Soviet Union was an ‘unfortunate event’ for the disintegration of historical Russia, thus declaring the start of a new phase in the rehabilitation of the Russian state.
“Putin, an intelligence man, began his political fame when he was the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, which destroyed with unconventional weapons the Chechen capital Grozny after declaring independence, killing and displacing tens of thousands of its Muslim residents, the same policy he followed in destroying the Syrian city of Aleppo in 2016.
“Since assuming power, he has pursued a policy of repression against his opponents, politicians and journalists, and is accused of ordering the assassination of journalist Anna Poltkevskaya and intelligence man Alexander Litvinenko and especially Chechen, accusing it of terrorism.
“And political opponent Navalny continues to serve the prison sentence as a model of deterrent punishment for anyone who dares challenge Putin’s presidency.
“Fortunately for Ukraine, it -- unlike the Islamic republics of Central Asia -- enjoys explicit American and European support, which helped it to withstand Putin’s ambitions to swallow it up and it became a ‘political’ concern over him, prompting him recklessly to mobilize his forces on the Ukrainian border, perhaps he would succeed in neutralizing Ukraine and prevent it from joining NATO and gain more popularity.
“But the internal policy of intimidation, if it succeeds in the Russian interior, is doomed to failure with NATO, which was able to break up the Soviet Union and is currently better able, militarily and economically, to deter Putin’s adventures, the least of which is the threat of imposing a suffocating economic blockade that might end his ‘tsarist dreams’.”