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| Arabia |
| 32 women register to run in Kuwait election |
| 2006-06-04 |
| KUWAIT CITY - Thirty-two women were among 402 hopefuls who signed to stand in the June 29 Kuwaiti general elections at the close of candidate registration on Saturday. The women, who are voting and running in parliamentary elections for the first time in the oil-rich Gulf state, are due to kick off their election campaigns on Sunday. The elections were called after Emir Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah dissolved parliament on May 21 following a bitter dispute between the government and opposition MPs over electoral reform. Opposition MPs have accused the government of deliberately blocking efforts to stamp out vote-buying by reducing the number of constituencies. Of the 50 members in the dissolved parliament, 47 are bidding to retain their seats, including 28 of the 29 opposition MPs who pledged to back a request, filed by three of them, to quiz Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad Al Sabah. Several Islamist and liberal groupings are contesting the election, which is being branded by reformists as a “true battle between corruption and reform.” But the Islamist Ummah Party, launched last year as the first political party in an Arab Gulf state, said Wednesday it would boycott the polls because of fraud concerns. The number of eligible voters is 340,000, of whom 195,000, or 57 per cent, are women. Kuwait has a native population of one million besides two million foreigners. |
| Posted by:Steve White |