KUWAIT, 19 May 2004 — Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah said yesterday democracy in the country will not be complete if women do not have the vote.

Sheikh Sabah’s Cabinet, in a surprise move, has approved a bill to give women the vote and run for Parliament, granting them political rights they have sought for 40 years. The draft bill still needs Parliament’s backing to become law.

Sheikh Sabah, who has pledged to press on with political and economic reform since taking office in July, denied the Cabinet took the decision because of pressure from Washington. Nor was the draft law an attempt to put pressure on Islamists, he said.

“(The bill) is not part of a tug of war between government and Islamist parliamentarians,” he told Al-Hayat Arabic daily. “And the Americans have not imposed and will not impose anything on Kuwait... What we are doing now is completing the path of reform.”

“The world considers our democracy lacking as long as women are deprived of political rights,” he added.

A similar decree issued by Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah was narrowly defeated in 1999 by Islamist and conservative lawmakers who wield enormous influence in the 50-man assembly. Some of them have vowed to block the new bill.

“This issue is going to be refused by the assembly just as it was refused by the past assembly,” one deputy, Daifallah Buramia, who intends to defeat the bill, was quoted by the Al-Seyassah daily as saying.

Kuwait Voices Fears Over Unrest in Iraq

The deteriorating security situation in Iraq is a cause for concern for Kuwait and all the region, Sheikh Sabah said.

“The security situation in Iraq is a cause for concern to Kuwait and all countries in the region,” he said, adding that regional stability depended on Iraq, where the head of the interim governing council was killed in a car bomb on Monday.

The prime minister ruled out sending troops to aid its northern neighbor. “We in Kuwait will not intervene militarily in Iraq,” he said.

Sheikh Sabah warned that the Gulf states also faced the threat of terrorism and voiced solidarity with Saudi Arabia where dozens have been killed in a series of attacks in the last year.

“The condemnable terrorist actions in Saudi Arabia can happen everywhere,” he cautioned. “Anything which undermines the security and stability of Saudi Arabia will have repercussions on (the security and stability of) Kuwait and countries in the region.”

On the rescheduled Arab summit set to open in Tunis on Saturday, the Kuwaiti prime minister said reform — the issue which forced the postponement of the gathering — should not be imposed on the 22 members of the Arab League.

“Each state has its own specificities for agreeing to such reforms,” he noted.