There is no shortage of policy challenges facing Kuwait’s new emir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. Northern oilfield development, electoral reform, a vast infrastructure programme for Bubiyan Island and other northern areas near the Iraqi border, privatization and the revamp of a lavishly funded but not always fully effective public sector.
But progress is stalled as he faces opposition from conservatives and liberals alike. Emir Sheikh Sabah acceded to national leadership on 29 January after parliament intervened to settle a dispute within the ruling Al-Sabah family over who should succeed the late Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah.
Kuwait is most widely associated abroad with oil-fuelled affluence, but the realities of Kuwaiti politics mean that, even during a period of oil boom, Emir Sheikh Sabah – now in his mid-70s – has inherited a demanding agenda. He is already intimately acquainted with many of the details, having served as prime minister since 2003 and as foreign minister for four decades before that.
Nor will the new emir be alone in taking the tough decisions. Al-Sabah rule is based on a formal constitutional structure in which the elected National Assembly also plays a central role.
The latest confrontation between government and parliamentarians – provoking Sheikh Sabah to dissolve the assembly and call elections a year early – is a reminder of quite how vibrant, and challenging this context can be.
In January, elected parliamentarians deployed their legal powers to rule that Sheikh Sabah should take the oath of office and become head of state, rather than the popular but ailing long-time crown prince, Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah. Political battles over issues such as women’s political rights, finally approved last year after repeated government attempts at reform, and electoral reform have been so hard fought precisely because parliament is so powerful.
The upside of a fractious parliamentary system is that when elected representatives do finally approve a contentious policy their decision is underpinned by a strong measure of legitimacy. But the system also makes it difficult to secure the passage of measures that may not be popular with the general public, such as cuts in the Kuwaiti welfare state’s generous cradle-to-grave subsidies or implementing Project Kuwait, the estimated $7 billion plan to revamp the emirate’s northern oilfields.
Project Kuwait in play
Nationalistic deputies have stalled Project Kuwait because the scheme envisages contracting international oil companies to bolster production; its opponents argue that natural resources are constitutionally reserved for Kuwaiti ownership. Sheikh Sabah and his ministerial team have struggled to put the technological and economic case for involving international oil companies. Overcoming a powerful streak of conservatism that tends to shape public opinion on economic issues is one of the biggest challenges facing Sheikh Sabah and his prime minister, Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah.
From the 1970s boom, Kuwait pioneered a highly successful model of oil-financed public-sector-led development, equipping the country with a good infrastructure and public services; it assured citizens of public sector employment and lavish welfare support: some 93% of all Kuwaiti employees now work for state entities. It is proving difficult to convince voters that, despite soaring oil prices, it now makes sense to adopt a more entrepreneurial approach based on private sector growth.
Taste for change
The emir has shown a capacity to work with diverse political factions on different issues, to push the government agenda. Women now vote and can run for office in municipal by-elections. A liberalizing new press law will permit the launch of new newspapers.
The emir’s decision to keep the posts of prime minister and crown prince separate has raised hopes of further modernization in the longer term. “It could be a prelude for appointing a popular prime minister from outside the family,” Nasser Al-Sane, a leading Islamist MP, told Emerging Markets.
Meanwhile, Sheikh Sabah has shown a deft touch in diplomatic bridge-building, notably with the Palestinians, who were expelled from Kuwait after the late Yasser Arafat supported Saddam Hussein at the time of the 1990-91 Iraqi invasion. This led the way for a domestically popular move to aid the new Hamas-led administration, thereby offsetting cuts in western aid following its election victory over Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement.
Sheikh Sabah faces a huge domestic task in persuading voters that this is
the moment to take uncomfortable reform decisions, starting with a review of the public sector’s role. The reform drive is already proving a challenge, for example.
While 29 parliamentarians formed an Alliance for Change and submitted an unprecedented demand for the prime minister himself to face questioning before them, loyalists swung in support of the government. In this tense atmosphere, Sheikh Sabah has resorted to his ultimate constitutional weapon – dissolution of the house, calling fresh elections, scheduled for 29 June.
The strength of support for a reformist electoral model based on five multi-member constituencies is a reminder of the distinctive political context in which Kuwait’s Emir must operate. The latest oil boom has endowed Gulf states with great wealth, but it will not last for ever. Sheikh Sabah’s reign will be defined by the extent to which he can translate this financial platform into a modernizing dynamism that helps to shape Kuwait for the decades that follow this oil price ‘shock’.