Kuwait: NA candidate organizes symposium for women

Kuwait Times
Published Date: May 12, 2009
By Nawara Fattahova, Staff writer

KUWAIT: Former MP and third district candidate Adel Al-Sarawi held a symposium for women at his diwaniya in Keifan on Sunday evening. He was a member of the parliament in 2003, 2006 and 2008.

Kuwait has the ability to be better than it is today. "We now have the depressive feeling of the present situation that came from the poor performance of both the parliament and the government. People are now wondering what the future strategies are for work in the coming period," Al-Sarawi said during the symposium.

Optimism is the first step to change the current situation. "We won't discuss who is responsible; we want to learn from our mistakes and not repeat those we have made in the past. I believe we should be optimistic about the qualified manpower and good legislation we have in Kuwait. We should believe that better times are coming," he added.

The Kuwaiti Constitution was issued in 1962. "The average age of those who wrote the Constitution was about 40, which means they were born around 1920. At that time, their education level was not high, but the Constitution is so complex that it can solve all of our present problems. We must deal with it seriously and we must protect this heritage so that it can be passed on to the next generations," Al-Sarawi said.

The negative political situation has caused many people to become frustrated. "The people feel resentment from all the problems. Some think they can affect the voters and persuade them not to vote, and this is a great mistake. I'm very optimistic and I believe that these elections will witness even greater participation than before. The challenge is not to give them the chance to destroy the democracy by not voting," he noted.

The future period is important for the nation. "Wrong practices in the parliament reflected a view of legislative corruption. There is no control over MPs. Many of them don't attend sessions of parliament or committee meetings, so where do they go? Some of them just say they discussed certain issues but they do not give any details because they did not make any effort," Al-Sarawi maintained.

He then proposed some solutions to avoid repeating the previous problems. Saying that there should be a strong government that is able to defend its opinions and not back down. He concluded, "We should have ministers that participate in making decisions and who are responsible for those decisions, not just their execution. The parliament and the government must cooperate according to Article no. 50 of the Constitution. As there are no political parties, the government should have the majority of the parlia
ment. It's not possible to carry out any projects without applying Article 50 by cooperating between the powers.