KUWAIT, 7 July 2003 — Pro-government candidates and Islamists swept to victory in the parliamentary elections in a major setback for reformists, results showed yesterday. Some 250 candidates ran in Saturday’s elections, which pitted liberals with ties to intellectuals and merchants against the Islamists. While the liberals seek a more open society, the Islamists favor religious governance.
The ruling family was the big winner. Its loyalists from bedouin tribes and other groups won about half of the 50-seat assembly, while liberals were left with a handful of seats. “This will be a weaker, quieter Parliament, causing less trouble for the government,” Shafeeq Al-Ghabra, a political scientist, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Conservative Islamists with strong tribal roots also gained ground, at the expense of more militant religious groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. “Tribal Islam was a main winner. These people care more about social services in their constituencies than politics,” Al-Ghabra told Reuters. “They will follow the government agenda.”
