Though Kuwait is one of the few democratic nations in the Arab world, the shifting state of its politics has made it the butt of many jokes, and provided fodder for rulers who say elections will do little to solve regional problems.
Yet Kuwait’s hitherto chaotic democracy passed an important landmark this month. Sheikh Nasser al Mohammed al-Sabah, the prime minister, survived a first parliamentary grilling and then comfortably won a vote of no confidence – another first in the region.
In recent years Kuwait has been stuck in a seemingly endless cycle in which the conservative opposition has deployed the threat of interrogation of ministers by deputies to stymie progress. Either leading cabinet members have been threatened with cross-examination and have resigned pre-emptively; or the emir, Sheikh Sabah al Ahmed Al Sabah, has sought to protect his kinsmen in cabinet by dissolving parliament and triggering elections.
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