Kuwait Elects Women to Parliament

(Kuwait City) Here's some pleasant news.

Frustrated at political turmoil that has rocked the country over the past three years, Kuwaitis voted 21 new faces into the 50-member Parliament, reducing Sunni Muslim groups to a minority. There was no immediate official figure on Saturday’s election turnout, but the state-run KUNA news agency estimated it at 58 percent, down from last year’s 65 percent.

Four women candidates made history by winning the first female seats in the Kuwaiti Parliament, with one of them coming on top of the 10 winners from her district.

Liberals Maasouma Al-Mubarak, Aseel Al-Awadhi and Rola Dashti, besides independent Salwa Al-Jassar won seats in the new house. All are US-educated and hold doctorate degrees in political science, economics and education. [...]

The two mainstream Sunni groups, the Islamic Salafi Alliance and the Islamic Constitutional Movement, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, were dealt a heavy blow, winning just three seats versus seven they held in the previous Parliament.

Their tribal Islamist supporters were also reduced from 14 to just eight seats. Liberals and their allies improved their tally by one seat to eight. The Shiite Muslim minority emerged big winners, almost doubling their strength from five seats to as many as nine. Five of them are Islamist Shiites.

It's not exactly clear what the long-term impact of the election will be. Presumably, more voices will be heard in day-to-day government policies but, as I understand, the entire Parliament can be ignored, overridden or even dissolved based upon dictates of His Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.