And the other main focus today is the crucial battle for the post of Assembly speaker for which four MPs are contesting. Several other MPs are also contesting the deputy speaker’s post.
This is the 14th Assembly since Kuwait held its first parliamentary election in 1963, a year after electing a constituent assembly that drafted and approved the constitution.
However, this is the fourth so-far “legal” Assembly since June 2006 but the sixth Assembly because the two previous parliaments were nullified by the constitutional court on the grounds of flawed constitutional procedures.
The last election held on July 27 was again boycotted by Islamist, nationalist and liberal opposition groups and as a result it recorded a voter turnout of just 52.5 percent, more than 10 percent lower than average but almost 13 percent higher than the less than 40 percent recorded in the election held last December. A number of groups that boycotted the polls in December and a majority of bedouin tribes took part in the July polls.
Under Kuwait law, the first session will be initially chaired by the oldest member, who is MP Hamad Al-Harashani, a tribal lawmaker who was a member in the scrapped Assembly.
The chairperson will deliver a speech to welcome the Amir who will then deliver a speech in which he is expected to call on MPs and the government to cooperate to accelerate the pace of development plans.
Then Prime Minister HH Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah will deliver his speech which is known in Kuwait as the “Amiri Address”, in which the premier will outline the main guidelines of his government policies and programs of the whole parliamentary term.
Then after a short interval to allow newly-elected MPs to greet the Amir, lawmakers and ministers will take the oath and the first real business of the Assembly will start.
MPs will be asked to elect the speaker for the four-year term of the Assembly. Four candidates have publicly said they will contest for the post – Ali Al-Rashed, the speaker of the scrapped assembly, Ali Al-Omair, the Salaf Islamist MP who lost to Rashed in the race for the speaker of scrapped Assembly, Marzouk Al-Ghanem and Roudhan Al-Roudhan.
The last two candidates had boycotted the December polls in protest against the amendment to the electoral law but took part in this election after the amendment was confirmed by the court.
Ghanem is primarily the main representative of the business community and the nephew of former speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi and Roudhan is a former Cabinet minister. Observers believe that Ghanem and Rashed have the best chance to go into a runoff and the 16 votes from the Cabinet are crucial in the expected close battle.
Then MPs will elect the deputy speaker. Several lawmakers like Adnan Abdulsamad, Mohammad Al-Hadiya, Mubarak Al-Khrainej and Kamel Al-Awadhi have expressed the desire to contest for the post.
The Assembly will also elect the Assembly’s secretary and observer and then the permanent committees. The session is expected to be the only one for the new Assembly in this term as it will go into summer recess until the end of October.
