Kuwait: Controversy over voting for women gets heated

The National
James Calderwood, Foreign Correspondent

Last Updated: May 07. 2009 10:59PM UAE / May 7. 2009 6:59PM GMT KUWAIT CITY // Waleed al Tabtabai, who served in Kuwait’s last parliament, stoked controversy this week when he agreed with a member of the Salafi Movement in saying it would be a sin to vote for women in the elections on May 16.

Mr al Tabtabai, who said he is an independent Salafi, was speaking on the sidelines of an election rally on Tuesday.

Fuhaid al Hailam of the Salafi Movement (SM) had started the row on Monday when he said it would be a sin to vote for one of the country’s 19 female candidates, Al Arabiya reported. Salafism is an austere branch of Islam that rejects innovation and believes in a strict, literal reading of the Quran.

“In Islam, the heads of the state should only be men, and we think the parliament is part of the head of the state,” Mr al Tabtabai said. “Other things are OK for women but not to be a part of the parliament.

“It’s an old fatwa,” he said referring to Mr al Hailam’s remarks. “Some of the public are not aware of it, but it was issued 20 or 30 years ago by the ministry of awqaf [Islamic Affairs].

Mr al Tabtabai is likely to regain his seat – polls suggest he will finish in the top 10 in his constituency, earning him a place in the 50-member parliament.

The women who are trying to reach parliament for the first time lambasted the statements.

Naeema al Hai, a Third Constituency candidate, said yesterday: “Those guys say it’s OK for them to take the vote of a woman, but not OK for women to vote for each other. That’s very wrong. That’s not the freedom and democracy that the Quran gave us.”

Ms al Hai said some men are frightened of the idea of sharing power with a woman in parliament.

Kuwait’s mainstream Salafi party, the Islamic Salafi Alliance (ISA), was the largest political group in the last parliament with four seats. Kuwait’s MPs are mostly independent or belong to small political groups. This year they are fielding five candidates. The SM has no presence in the forthcoming election.

The emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, dissolved the last assembly and called for new elections in May when some MPs tried to question the prime minister, Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al Ahmad Al Sabah, who is a royal.

Mr al Tabtabai was involved in the previous political crisis in November as it was his request to question the prime minister that led to the resignation of the cabinet.

Two of the ISA’s candidates, Khalid Sultan bin Essa and Abdullatif al Ameeri, did address an exclusively female audience at a rally on Tuesday. The women passed questions to the former MPs on cards, but did not ask about the fatwa.

Instead, they focused Mr bin Essa’s involvement with supermarkets that sold pork and alcohol overseas. Mr bin Essa said he did not establish the companies, he bought into them, and they have now withdrawn the products.

Mr al Ameeri distanced his party from Mr al Hailam of the SM but did not take sides on the fatwa. “The Salafi Movement is different from us,” Mr al Ameeri said.

“For example, the alliance considers bin Laden as a criminal. They consider him a hero.
“We don’t know what the origin of the fatwa is,” he said. “This is not right. We have to find the correct origin in the Quran and Sunnah.”

Mr bin Essa clarified his party’s position in an interview yesterday. He said voting for women was not a sin. “We separated ourselves from the fatwa. We issued a statement that undermines theirs.”

But some of the women at the rally agreed with the fatwa. Waheeda Abdulwahab, a sister of Mr al Ameeri, said she supportsedit because nobody in her religion would issue a fatwa that was untrue, as doing so would be a serious sin.

Another woman at the event, Sheikha al Fahad, who is involved in running the ISA’s campaign, said: “I don’t agree with the fatwa 100 per cent, maybe 30 per cent. I know what they mean when they say it’s a sin. It’s too soon for Kuwaiti women to enter the parliament – maybe in a few years.”

At another campaign rally this week, a former MP and candidate for the ISA, Ali al Omair, said his religion did not permit women to serve in the assembly but “if a lady is either elected or nominated by the government, we have to deal with her.
“We can’t isolate ourselves because there is a woman in the parliament”.

This will be the third attempt by women to reach the National Assembly since they received full political rights in 2005. The polls predict three women will win seats in the next parliament.