Almost constant factional infighting over the past seven years has prompted repeated elections, stalled infrastructure development and held up economic reforms in Kuwait, an important Gulf Arab oil producer and US ally.
The Administrative Court refused to rule on petitions demanding that it orders parliamentary elections scheduled be suspended over legal irregularities.
The court said that dealing with the issue is “outside its jurisdiction” which means that the court is not competent to rule on four petitions demanding the election be halted to rectify a number of procedural flaws.
Lawyer Adel Abdulhadi, who filed one of the petitions, said he will challenge the verdict at the Appeals Court which is expected to hold a session urgently to look into the matter.
The Appeals Court ruling can also be challenged before the Court of Cassation, the highest court in the country.
Abdulhadi’s petition alleged that the current Kuwaiti Cabinet does not meet a key requirement in the constitution and thus it is illegal and all decisions made by the government are also illegal, including approving the decree that called for the July 27 election.
Under the Kuwaiti law, the Cabinet must include at least one elected MP and Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Thekra Al-Rasheedi was the elected member.
But Abdulhadi argued in court that following the June 16 verdict by the Constitutional Court in which it scrapped the December 1 election process and ordered the Assembly dissolved, Rasheedi no longer is an elected MP and accordingly the Cabinet does not have an elected MP, rendering it unconstitutional.
Another petition was filed by a lawyer on behalf of a Kuwaiti voter who said that his newly-established residential area is not part of any of the five constituencies and thus he cannot vote and demanded that the election be halted until the issue is rectified.
If the courts refuse the petitions, the lawyers can challenge the election results before the Constitutional Court which may declare the election unconstitutional for the third time since June last year.
In a related development, the Interior Ministry yesterday denied that it had caught cases of vote-buying by some candidates, describing the news about the issue as “rumors”.
The ministry added that statements made by some candidates about vote-buying are merely allegations not supported by evidence. It said that no candidate has so far complained to the ministry of specific vote-buying cases.
A number of reports and statements by candidates running in the election have claimed that vote-buying is rampant in all the five constituencies with some reports even giving figures about the value of votes in each electoral district.
The ministry however said that it has set up a special security team to monitor the election process and follow up on any information on vote-buying.
Meanwhile, the interior ministry is expected to announce today a decision to disqualify about a dozen candidates and bar them from running in the election, mainly because they have received verdicts discrediting their records.
The affected candidates, who include former MPs and members of the scrapped assembly, have the right to challenge the decision before the administrative court. Around 390 candidates are still in the race for the 50-seat assembly with just five days remaining before withdrawals of candidacy close.
