Constitutional Court Annuls Kuwait’s 2022 Parliament Vote
The court ruled that the previous National Assembly, elected in 2020, could serve out the rest of its term; it is the second time in a decade that the court has nullified an election
The Constitutional Court in Kuwait has annulled the 2022 parliamentary elections for the country’s National Assembly, and announced the return to the previous parliament, which was elected in 2020.
According to the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA): “The court, which met, on Sunday, decided to invalidate the elections on the basis of which the members of the National Assembly were elected in 2022, and that the election of the parliament’s deputies was invalid. It also decided to return to the previous National Assembly from 2020, headed by Marzouq Al-Ghanim, to complete its legal term.”
It is the second time that the Constitutional Court has nullified the results of an election. A decade ago, it invalidated the results of the 2012 elections, after the dissolution of the National Assembly elected in 2009.
Last year, Kuwait’s crown prince dissolved parliament and called early elections in an effort to resolve a political standoff between the executive and legislative branches of government. The court’s ruling, in response to several electoral appeals, appears to undermine the efforts by the emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Nawaf Al-Sabah, and the Kuwaiti Crown Prince Mishaal Al-Subah to “rectify the political path.”
At the time of the dissolution of the National Assembly, the crown prince said that “the rift in the relationship between the legislative and executive authorities is tearing apart the political scene, and there is an overlap between the legislative and executive authorities, which has resulted in practices that threaten national unity.”
The emir’s initiative last year came with the aim of resolving the political crisis afflicting the country; the opposition had previously boycotted parliamentary elections, but came back to win the 2022 elections.
In January, the Kuwaiti government headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, son of the emir, submitted its resignation after only three months on the job.
It was the third government formed by the son of the emir since his appointment as prime minister in August 2022, and the sixth government to be formed in Kuwait in three years; the previous governments resigned due to political disagreements.
The measure that was taken by the Constitutional Court will bring back to the fore a crisis that lasted from 2020 to 2022
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Neither the emir nor the crown prince has yet issued an official comment on the ruling of the Constitutional Court. The former speaker of the National Assembly, Marzouq Al-Ghanim, who was reinstated as part of the ruling, wrote in the bio of his official account on Twitter: “Speaker of the National Assembly.”
“This measure reflects the extent of democratic life in Kuwait. The people have their say, and the authority has its say,” Dr. Fahd Al-Shulaimi, a Kuwaiti political analyst, told The Media Line.
“It may be a political maneuver by the government to return the loyalist council instead of the council that the opposition won, but the maneuver is legitimate, and those who submitted the appeal before the Constitutional Court are citizens, not the government,” he added.
Kuwaiti political activist Naif al-Haijry tweeted that: “This step is unacceptable. The Kuwaiti prime minister is cheating and he is the beneficiary of this step.”
“There is no Kuwaiti who is happy with the ruling of the Constitutional Court in Kuwait. The free Kuwaiti people said their word in the 2022 elections, and therefore the parliament must remain, not dissolved and no return to the 2020 council,” the tweet continued.
“The measure that was taken by the Constitutional Court will bring back to the fore a crisis that lasted from 2020 to 2022,” Dareen Ali, a journalist for the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa specializing in parliamentary affairs, told The Media Line.
“There is a division in the political center between supporters and opponents of the court’s ruling, but opposition representatives have not yet issued any statement about the court’s ruling,” she added.
“There are many files awaiting political stability, which are developmental, legislative, political, economic and other files. Political stability must be found to solve these files,” she said.
Ali Al-Ayyad, a Kuwaiti opposition political activist, said in a tweet that caused a sensation in Kuwait: “There are those who deceived the emir and the crown prince.”
“When the Crown Prince of Kuwait announced the procedures in 2022, he said at the time that they were carried out in consultation with politicians and constitution experts, so how does the Constitutional Court rule that these procedures are invalid,” he also tweeted.
The Kuwaiti court ruling will create a crisis of confidence between the people and the advisors of the emir of Kuwait and the crown prince
“The Kuwaiti court ruling will create a crisis of confidence between the people and the advisors of the emir of Kuwait and the crown prince,” Kuwaiti politician Thamer Al-Anzi told The Media Line. “We will go into the unknown until now. There has been no stable government for three years, and there is not even a stable People’s Assembly.”
Yaqoub Al-Sanea, a Kuwaiti lawyer, told the Media Line: “We are awaiting the intervention of the emir of the state. There is a new custom being established, which is incorrect and unconstitutional. It will become that the prime minister can nullify any council he does not like.”
Salman Al-Hulaileh, a member of the 2020 National Assembly, told The Media Line: “The most important thing is the stability of Kuwait, where stability drives development, and there are many dangers surrounding Kuwait and the region at present, and therefore stability must be sought.”
