Parliament Adjourns Amid Political Instability

If ministers and legislators were paid daily wages based on their productivity and time worked, one wonders what their earnings would be. Considering their overall output and the fact that they are required to attend just two regular sessions once every two weeks during an annual session that lasts no longer than eight months, their take-home pay would be paltry. Luckily for them, a benevolent state has ensured they receive a massive monthly salary plus prodigious perquisites that allow them to lead a lavish lifestyle, even by Kuwait’s über-opulent standards.

Continued disruptive proceedings in parliament due to the ongoing confrontation between the executive and legislative branches of government have left lawmakers with plenty of time on their hands and very little work to do. For the last many weeks, there has been no meaningful work taking place in the National Assembly, and sessions have been adjourned repeatedly. The opposition bloc insists that no work in parliament will be permitted without the prime-minister taking the podium to face their grilling motion, and the premier is just as adamant not to do so.

Last week, Parliament once again cut short its regular weekly session and ended the current term, sending lawmakers on an extended summer holiday that now stretches until October. An Amiri decree adjourning parliament was announced by National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim in a statement last Tuesday that stated, “Parliament’s 16th legislative term will adjourn starting this Thursday 1 July, whereby the prime minister is now obliged to inform lawmakers of the news.”

A special session called for Thursday to discuss the country’s increasingly precarious financial situation, was held in-camera upon request by the government. Accordingly, at the opening of the session on Thursday, Speaker Al-Ghanim ordered Abdullah Al-Salem Hall emptied of all visitors, so as to discuss the government’s request to consider the state’s financial situation in a secret session. The Parliament’s 16th legislative term was then adjourned with a statement by the Secretary-General of the National Assembly, Adel Al-Loughani, who read Decree No. 139 of 2021 to adjourn the session.

Kuwait, the only Constitutional Monarchy in the region, has an elected parliament and an appointed government. While 50 parliamentarians are elected for a four-year term through universal suffrage and secret ballot among eligible Kuwaiti voters, the Prime Minister is appointed by His Highness the Amir. The premier then draws up a Cabinet or Council of Ministers, which is limited by the Constitution to a maximum of one-third the strength of the National Assembly, or 16 members currently.

Members of the Cabinet are also permitted by the Constitution to sit in parliament as deputies, and have the same rights as elected MPs. The only two exceptions to this rule are that they cannot participate in the works of committees, and they are not allowed to vote when an interpellation leads to a no-confidence vote against one of the cabinet members. This constitutional restriction is one reason why the government is reluctant to enter into a face-off with the opposition in parliament.Given the prevailing contentious nature of relations between the executive and legislative branches, the government is aware that opposition MPs have the numbers to force any minister out of office through a no-confidence motion, or to table a non-cooperation resolution against the Prime Minister with His Highness the Amir. A non-cooperation move against the prime minister would lead to the premier tendering the resignation of the Cabinet to His Highness the Amir.

In this context, His Highness the Amir could then ask the prime minister to form a new cabinet, or choose another prime minister to form a new Council of Ministers. The Amir could also choose to annul parliament and call for fresh elections within two months as mandated by the Constitution, or dissolve the assembly unconstitutionally and defray elections while appointing a cabinet to run the country.

Since the first legislative term began in January 1963, Kuwait has hobbled along a democratic parliamentary path that has so far seen eight constitutional dissolutions and a couple of unconstitutional ones. Kuwait has witnessed five consecutive dissolutions since the 10th legislative term in 2003, until the 15th legislative term broke this chain of dissolutions by completing its full four-year term from 2016 to 2020.

The 16th legislative term that began on 15 December 2020, the first since His Highness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah was sworn in as the Amir of Kuwait, got off to a wobbling start with the Cabinet tendering its resignation in less than a month of its formation. The current cabinet formed on 2 March of this year is the 38th in the history of Kuwait. Following resignation of the 37th Cabinet, His Highness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah decided to reassign Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah as Prime Minister on 24 January and tasked him with forming a new cabinet.

The latest parliamentary elections held on 5 December, 2020 resulted in the Islamist opposition bloc in the National Assembly gaining in strength at the expense of liberals and pro-government candidates. The results signalled an entrenchment of the conservative trend that has been gaining traction in recent legislatures. parliament in recent years. The return of seven former leading opposition MPs after several years of remaining away from politics, as well as the entry of two ex-ministers, Badr Nasser Al-Humaidi and Shuaib Shabbab Al-Muwaizri, in opposition garb, portended to the bleak future that awaited executive-legislative relations in the 16th legislature.

In election promises to their constituencies, many new MPs had promised to raise several highly contentious issues during the 16th legislative term, including a resolution to the long-festering topic of Bedouins; reforming the electoral system, which since 2012 has allowed voters to pick only one candidate, in place of the earlier four; and revamping the process of electing the National Assembly Speaker, among other issues.
Accordingly, a day after the opening session of the new legislative term several lawmakers submitted proposals to discuss a variety of political issues.

Clarifying their parliamentary priorities, one opposition figure said, “While we intend proposing other important laws that range from demographic imbalance to education, we started off with submitting political proposals to amend laws so as to set the stage, so that it makes it easier for us to pass legislation regarding more technical issues.”

The idea that political discussions and interpellations in parliament are designed to pave the way for lawmakers to make it easier to pass more urgent laws at a later date, is as lopsided as priorities can get. Meanwhile, the government is said to be contemplating passing urgent bills, including the public debt law, through Amiri decrees during the interim period that parliament is not in session. The National Assembly Speaker hinted to this possibility during his statement on Tuesday adjourning parliament.

Refuting media reports on the government introducing decrees that could “harm the interests of citizens” such as taxes, he pointed out that any decree issued must be presented in parliament within 15 days from the date of its issuance for approval by lawmakers. Nevertheless, the Speaker was quick to add that, “adoption of any law after adjournment of a parliament session is a different matter”.

He pointed out that Article 71 of the Constitution states: “Where incidents requiring urgent action occur between sessions of the National Assembly or during its dissolution the Amir may, in such cases, promulgate decrees that shall have force of law provided they do not infringe on the Constitution or tamper with the estimates appearing in the Budgetary Law.”

Prior to the parliamentary adjournment, Minister of Finance and Minister of State for Economic and Investment Affairs, Khalifa Hamada, also gave a positive spin to the country’s finances. He described Kuwait’s financial position as remaining “very strong” as it is supported by the “Future Generations Fund, which has seen exponential growth as of late.” He added that the Fund has in the past five years achieved a 33-percent increase in revenue, eclipsing the performances of similar sovereign funds around the world, and even surpassing the country’s oil revenues.

He attributed the fund’s “historic growth” to the “competence and professionalism” of those overseeing it. The Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) is the entity mandated by the State to manage the country’s two major funds, the General Reserve Fund (GRF) and the Future Generations Fund (FGF). The GRF, which acts as the State treasury, has been struggling with liquidity issues from funding recurring budget deficits and low oil revenues.

The FGF, which invests the state revenues in assets and ventures mainly abroad, serves as a financial buffer for a period in the future when Kuwait could run out of oil.

While the chances of Kuwait’s oil reserves running dry are a possibility in the distant future, a more increasing likelihood is for the world opting to replace carbon-emitting hydrocarbon fuels for cleaner renewable resources to meet its energy needs.

In his speech complimenting management of FGF, the finance minister did not elaborate on why the KIA, which manages both funds, exhibited “competence and professionalism” in managing one fund but not in the other. Several media reports have hinted at disagreement between the government and KIA board on how best to manage the funds, including on a request by the finance ministry to dip into the FGF to help tide over budgetary deficits and the present liquidity crunch in the GRF.

Reports indicate that the KIA has been in a limbo for the last several months due to the government’s reticence to renew the tenure terms of KIA board members that expired a couple of months ago. The government has yet to announce a new term for the Board of Directors as political differences spill over into a disagreement over the make-up of the nine-member board.

In the meantime, the GRF is said to have dwindled to as low as KD1.63 billion by the end of March 2021. Though it has grown since then on the back of rising oil prices in international markets, net assets of the GRF have witnessed significant declines over the past several years as a result of the decline in oil prices and the need to fund the government’s recurring budget deficits. The net withdrawals from the GRF is estimated to have been around KD41 billion from fiscal year 2015-2016 until 31December, 2020.

Despite highlighting the performance of FGF, the finance minister did admit that liquid assets of GRF were “completely exhausted” last summer as a result of “mounting expenditure”. He added that a raft of liquidity measures worth US$23 billion had been taken since then to keep financial stability intact. He also acknowledged that “rising oil prices” in recent months had helped provide the treasury with adequate liquidity in the near-term.

Nevertheless, he warned that the “crunch” in liquidity remains a challenge, and noted that the government had put in place a four-year plan to set in motion a spate of financial and economic reforms aimed at boosting the treasury’s liquidity in the long run.

He added, “Financial reforms have now become a dire necessity for the country, and this demands that both the executive and legislative authorities work closer together to bring this goal to fruition.” We heard a similar wishful thinking before from the finance minister’s predecessor. But, with those involved apparently not listening, this too will likely be just that, wishful thinking.

 

SOURCE : TIMES KUWAIT

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