Kuwait: Female voters can change election results: Candidate

Kuwait Times

Published Date: April 28, 2009

KUWAIT: The first electoral district candidate, Abdullah Mohammed Abdulrahman Al-Traiji said that Kuwaiti women have proven to be effective members of Kuwait's society. "This is not something new that has occurred after women were granted political rights and were allowed to run for parliament," Al-Traiji said. It is due to the open-minded way these women have been bringing up their children that has contributed toward the formation of Kuwait's public opinion. "The Kuwaiti woman has always been a mother, s
ister, wife and grateful daughter who has worked hard to maintain the integrity of her family," he added.

Al-Traiji emphasized that Kuwaiti women should play a prominent role in serving Kuwait by fully observing Kuwait's religion, traditions, values, ethics and customs. "Along with their male fellow citizens, Kuwaiti women have withstood firmly the violation of Kuwait's sovereignty during Saddam's invasion in 1990," he said.

Al-Traiji further highlighted that the presence of Kuwaiti women in the forthcoming elections, both as voters and candidates would surely have a good and positive impact on the electoral process. "Kuwaiti women are more far-sighted and capable of making better choices these days," he added. "Yet, they still face great challenges and prove their effectiveness by selecting and voting only for the best. The fact that the total number of female voters outnumber the male by at least 25 percent surely indicates
how capable they will be in forming the next parliament by directing the elections process," he said.

Al-Traiji added that he chose his electoral campaign slogan to be 'You Can if You Will, a choice seconded by several visits to various diwaniyas in the first electoral district. There, he said, he detected voters' complete dissatisfaction with the relation between the legislative and executive powers. "I always told voters that lawmakers were the direct result of voters' choices and that if a voter had real willingness to make a change and achieve reform, he or she can surely do that easily," he said.

Speaking about his electoral campaign agenda, Al-Traiji said that it will focus on three basic issues: security, economy and administration. In his words, those three issues would form the basis of solving all problems Kuwaiti citizens have been experiencing. "Leniency in handling various security, economic and administrative issues and laziness in dealing with them constitutionally and scientifically led to an accumulation of dangerous problems and threats to Kuwait's present and future," he said.

The government's policy on these issues has been so helpless and hesitant. In most cases, it could best be described as negligent and indifferent." Such a train of events has paved the way for more popular unconstitutional calls among some MPs which, negatively affects inter-powers relations.

In dwelling on the between-power relations he said, "The controversy raised about women's rights and protecting public funds is the best indicator of how incompetent the legislative and executive branches were in achieving any development for this country." He further added that his agenda aims to address the ways which will help reach well-devised solutions.

Speaking about the government's security deficiency, Al-Traiji accussed that regional security has been unstable for a while and historically, Kuwait had always felt under threat. "Having to share the responsibility of reconstructing Iraq and transforming it into a stable country places more social, economic, political and planning responsibilities on Kuwait," he said. According to him, the bedoons' problem has been one of the most urgent security concerns in Kuwait. "As we see it, the best solution to th
is problem is granting citizenship to those who actually deserve it.

In his words, traffic problems were also part of Kuwait's security concerns that need full coordination with regional and international countries to exchange views and to plan expertise. "I believe one of the solutions to this problem would be to establish a public authority for traffic which will replace the traffic department and will have an independent budget and its own specialized staff," he elaborated.

Health services in Kuwait, Al-Traijin says, gives way only to security. He said that there has been critical shortcomings in health policies set by various governments and that Kuwait's health infrastructure still lacked a lot of change, equipment and staff.