Kuwait Times, Saturday, Aug 27, 2022 | Muharram 29, 1444
Court bars ex-MP Dahoum from running in elections
Kuwait:
The administrative court on Thursday barred former opposition MP
Bader Al-Dahoum from running in the upcoming elections after rejecting his
petition to reenlist him on the election rolls. The court also rejected the
appeals of 35 other voters who were not listed by the ministry of interior for a
variety of reasons. The court is expected to continue looking into more
petitions in the coming days.
Dahoum was elected to the National Assembly in the previous elections on Dec 5,
2020. A year later, the constitutional court, whose rulings are final,
disqualified his election win based on a law that bars people convicted on
political cases from running in polls. Dahoum said on Twitter that he will
challenge the verdict at the court of cassation, the top court in the country,
because the verdict violated a previous ruling issued by the court of cassation
allowing him to run in polls in 2020.
After the court completes looking into the election petitions, the election
decree setting the date for the upcoming Assembly polls will be issued and
published in the official gazette early next week. When the decree is published
in the gazette, the election department of the interior ministry will start from
the next day the registration of candidates who wish to run for the 50 seats in
the Assembly.
The registration of candidates continues for 10 days. The door for withdrawals
will then open until seven days before the election date, expected to be on Sept
29. Top candidates including former MPs have already announced they are running
in elections. They include veteran opposition leader and former three-time
speaker Ahmad Al-Saadoun, 87, who is expected to contest the speaker’s post if
he wins a seat.
Other candidates who said they are running include MP Obaid Al-Wasmi, who left
the opposition ranks to form an alliance with the previous government and former
speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem. Former MPs Abdulkarim Al-Kandari, Abdullah
Al-Kandari, Osama Al-Shaheen, Abdullah Al-Saqabi, Askar Al-Enezi, Hamad
Al-Matar, Musaed Al-Mutairi, Osama Al-Munawer and many others have announced
they are bidding for re-election. Kuwait, with a population of 1.42 million, has
some 800,000 eligible voters, half of them women. The country is divided into
five electoral constituencies, each electing 10 lawmakers.