The Kuwaiti government promised Sunday that within six months to a year it will hold elections for Parliament, suspended four times since 1962, but also hinted it may extend martial law.
First, said Minister of State Abdulrahim Awadi, the 400,000 Kuwaitis who fled the Iraqi occupation have to return and be re-registered.
”The minute this is ready, we`ll have the election and have Parliament back,” Awadi said. ”It is going to be soon. This is an obligation by the government. There`s no going back on that.
”Maybe it will be six months, a maximum of one year-but I don`t think it`s going to be that much.”
Ironically, though clearly designed to ease rapidly increasing public grumbling, the promise of new elections reflects a go-slow attitude toward democratic reforms first enunciated by Kuwait`s crown prince last week.
The grumbling began with fears that the ruling al-Sabah family would revert to its prewar habits of snuffing out dissent and summarily dismissing Parliament whenever it thought political opposition was getting out of hand.
Complaints are accelerating because of the continuing lack of electricity, poor food distribution and the daily annoyance of having to pass through military checkpoints every few blocks across the capital city.
The nightly curfew was lifted early Sunday, just as the holy month of Ramadan began. Huge crowds gathered Sunday night at Kuwait City`s beachfront for a noisy celebration, garishly lit from time to time by military flares and tracer bullets fired into the sky to mark the occasion.
Awadi denied widespread reports that the crown prince, Saad Abdullah al-Sabah, had told a U.S. congressional delegation that democratic reforms would have to await Kuwait`s total reconstruction.
”We have to first of all put the country in order and have security enough for everybody,” Awadi said. ”. . . It`s going to be a very difficult reorganization.”
He said the government has a two-phase plan:
– A 3-month ”emergency phase,” the government`s term for the martial law declared as allied forces were driving Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
– A period of one to two years to reorganize the government`s structure, the work force and the nation`s shattered economy. It may take as long as 10 years to restore some elements of Kuwait to prewar levels, Awadi said.
Kuwait`s political opposition is driven by deep doubts that the government will keep its promise to hold elections soon.
Jasan Mutawa, editor of Watan (the Nation), Kuwait`s largest daily, noted skeptically that government censors have been trimming political news from his paper since 1986.
”We are convinced there will be no freedoms if it is left up to the government,” he said.
Another comment, typical of the growing number of Kuwaitis who seldom voiced anti-government views earlier, came from businessman Abdullah Beijan as he neared a line of dignitaries greeting the crown prince upon the leader`s return this month from the royal family`s exile in Saudi Arabia.
”This is not what we want,” Beijan whispered, frowning. ”We want a full democracy. We want a Parliament, and discussion out in the open.”
The complaints provide the opposition with its best chance in years to take on the al-Sabah family.
”People are much more bitter than ever before,” said Abdullah Nebari, an opposition leader and former Parliament member. ”Basically, if people don`t get what they want, there will be many demonstrations.”
The opposition wants the Parliament, suspended in 1986, to be restored;
fewer top government jobs given to al-Sabahs; an end to the ban on political parties; and complete press freedoms.
Kuwait is not violence-torn like Lebanon, but it has flirted with political instability for years. The difference is that most criticism today is like Abdullah Beijan`s-whispered and quite moderate.
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Still, the rumblings aren`t taken lightly by Kuwait`s rulers.
Members of the 1,000-strong al-Sabah family, who have ruled Kuwait since 1756, are openly hostile to the opposition. The dissidents` sole purpose is to condemn, said banker Khaled Nasser al-Sabah, 31, a royal family member.
Government officials also question the opposition`s support. ”Very few people have told me they want elections before they have water or see their missing loved ones again,” said Planning Minister Suleiman Mutawa.
But opposition leaders are undaunted. They say their ranks have been boosted by an intense rivalry between the 200,000 Kuwaitis who stayed to face the Iraqis, and the 400,000 who fled. Many who remained say they will not accept orders from those who fled.
”For Kuwaitis who stayed behind, the invasion really shook Kuwaiti society. You cannot describe your feeling when you go to sleep at night and you wake up to find that your whole government has collapsed and run away,”
said Yusuf Ibrahim, a Kuwait University economics professor.
A newcomer to active political opposition, last week he joined a demonstration over the government`s slow resumption of basic services.
But the protest was halted quickly, he said, by police who said it violated the three-month martial law period declared two days before Kuwait`s liberation.
As the minister of water and electricity, Hamid Abdullah Raqaba, announced at a news conference Saturday that electricity would not be available for another three weeks, an opposition member angrily accused the government of incompetence.
”Things have turned out to be a big fat zero,” said Faisal Marzouk, deputy chairman of the Commercial Bank of Kuwait.
Though the opposition`s disparate members share the same goal of getting the al-Sabahs to loosen the reins of government, they agree on hardly anything else.
The best organized and most influential group, say politicians and journalists, is the fundamentalist Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood. It vies for support with another Islamic group, the Followers, who disdain political organizing.
There is another group that represents Kuwait`s Shiite Muslims, who make up a quarter of the population.
A large chunk of the opposition comes from two moderate groups, the Arab nationalists and the Democratic Alliance. They barely see eye to eye with the religious groups.
A group with nearly as much clout as the Ikhwan is made up of business leaders from the nation`s 50 top families and major firms. They resent the favoritism shown toward al-Sabah family members, who hold seven positions in the Cabinet. They also say the government`s economic policies are too restrictive.
They especially hold the government accountable for the 1982 failure of Kuwait`s stock market, which collapsed because of loose regulation. Hundreds of businesses suffered in an economic slide that was still being felt last year.