SPEAKER SAYS NATIONAL ASSEMBLY COULD GO EITHER WAY

C O N F I D E N T I A L KUWAIT 000927

SIPDIS

FOR NEA/ARPI

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/06/2010
TAGS: PREL KDEM KWMN PGOV KU WOMEN POLITICAL RIGHTS
SUBJECT: SPEAKER SAYS NATIONAL ASSEMBLY COULD GO EITHER WAY
ON WOMEN'S VOTE

REF: A. KUWAIT 796

B. KUWAIT 405

C. 99 KUWAIT 7303

Classified By: Ambassador Richard LeBaron for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d).


1. (C) During a brief exchange at a social event on March 5,
National Assembly Speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi told Ambassador
that the Assembly vote on women's political rights would
either pass or fail by one or two votes. The Speaker said
that the government could decide to handle the issue through
two other maneuvers, but he continues to believe a National
Assembly vote would be the best way to make the decision.


2. (C) Al-Khorafi's second best option would be for the
government to dissolve the parliament and grant women
immediate rights to vote and hold office through Amiri
decree. Then the next Assembly would be partially elected by
women voters. (Note: The previous attempt to grant women's
suffrage by decree in 1999, issued when the Assembly was in
recess, proved divisive and fell short by two votes when the
Assembly reconvened. Critics blamed the government for
failing to encourage undecided MPs to support the effort.
Interestingly, Al-Khorafi was one of the two dissenters. In
the option Al-Khorafi is raising, the decree would only take
effect if introduced after the current Assembly -- elected
for a 4-year term in 2003 -- were dissolved. Any subsequent
vote on the decree would be by an Assembly elected by women
voters. End note.) Al-Khorafi said that this option is not
very attractive since it calls into question the democratic
credentials of the country.


3. (C) A third option is for the government to take the
matter to the constitutional court. Al-Khorafi said this was
a poor option because it could be used as a precedent to call
into question some of the privileges now afforded to women,
or other issues such as the lack of voting rights for
military personnel.


4. (C) Finally, Al-Khorafi said that those women who will
organize and be effective politically will not be the
relatively secular and modern segment of the population but
rather will come from the more organized and determined
traditional and conservative religious groups. He said this
phenomenon is already evident in elections in universities --
Islamists have led the Kuwait's Student Union for the past 25
years -- and other non-governmental organizations.

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