KUWAIT CITY, 2 July 2006 — Kuwait’s Cabinet resigned yesterday as was expected after parliamentary elections in which Kuwaitis elected a new legislature of mostly reformers.
Kuwait’s state-owned television said Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah, who headed the outgoing Cabinet, submitted the resignations of all 16 members to the country’s emir, according to the requirements of the constitution. The ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, accepted them, it said.
Women voted and ran for office in Thursday’s elections for the first time, but they failed to win any of the legislature’s 50 seats. The new legislature replaces one dissolved by the emir in May, following a dispute over electoral reform.
In what could be seen as a sign of good will, the Cabinet, in its last order of business, withdrew its controversial bill for redrawing electoral constituencies, the government said in a statement. Disagreement in Parliament over the bill sparked the dissolution of the house and the early elections.
The outgoing Cabinet included one woman, Massouma Al-Mubarak, who held the planning and administrative development portfolio. She was the first Kuwaiti woman to be appointed as minister after women were granted political rights last year.
The emir is expected to ask Sheikh Nasser to form a new Cabinet. The Cabinet must include at least one member of Parliament, though key portfolios of interior, defense and foreign affairs are traditionally held by Al-Sabahs.
The newly elected legislature has 36 reformists who are expected to support a bill for cutting the number of electoral constituencies from 25 to five.
