US embassy cable - 04KUWAIT2245

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KUWAIT 002245 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ARP 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/16/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, KU 
SUBJECT: (SBU) NATIONAL ASSEMBLY: FAILED JULY 13 
'EXTRAORDINARY SESSION' ON MUNICIPALITIES LAW PROVOKES 
CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATE 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Richard H. Jones for reason 1.4 (d) 
 
1. (C) Summary:  After more than a year of conspicuous 
inaction by the GOK and parliament on municipal reform, the 
National Assembly failed to reach a quorum in the July 13 
extraordinary session called to debate an Amiri decree 
postponing Municipal Council elections for another year. 
This provoked a constitutional debate about the validity of 
the decree, detracting from the serious issue of reforming an 
institution seen as corrupt.   End Summary. 
 
2. (SBU) The National Assembly failed to produce a quorum 
during the July 13 extraordinary session called to debate 
the July 5 Amiri decree postponing Municipal Council 
elections for one more year or until a new Municipalities Law 
is passed by the National Assembly, whichever comes first. 
The new decree is a re-issuance of a decree issued on July 
15, 2003 -- voted down just days before the June 30, 2004 
recess of the National Assembly-- which had postponed 
elections for a new municipal council for one year and 
installed a government-appointed Municipal Affairs Committee 
to replace the 16 member elected Municipal Council which had 
long governed the activities of Kuwait,s municipalities. 
 
3. (U) The constitution requires that any Amiri decree issued 
while the National Assembly is in recess be "referred to the 
National Assembly within fifteen days" (Article 71).  The GOK 
dutifully submitted the July 5 decree and an extraordinary 
session was called for July 13.  However, the session was 
gaveled shut after only half an hour when the Assembly failed 
to produce a quorum of members, leaving the government and 
many National Assembly members at odds over the validity of 
the decree.  The GOK claims the decree is valid because the 
fact that an extraordinary session was called to debate the 
decree proves the government had referred the decree to the 
Assembly within fifteen days. Some National Assembly members 
and political scholars disagree, claiming that the decree 
cannot be considered referred to the National Assembly until 
a quorum of the Assembly has formally taken note of it. This 
is reportedly the first time ever that a session called to 
address a decree issued while the National Assembly was in 
recess failed to reach a quorum. (Comment: On the face of it, 
the critics' argument is not convincing: Article 93 makes 
clear that some functions of the Assembly can continue during 
recess; the calling of an extraordinary session is treated 
separately (in Art. 88) from referral of recess decrees.  The 
critics' interpretation would give the Assembly a pocket veto 
over Amiri decrees issued while the Assembly is in recess. 
End Comment.) 
 
4. (U) The GOK issued the July 5 decree after an identical 
decree issued in 2003 was voted down in the final days of the 
2004 session. The 2003 decree had itself been a response to 
the failure of the 2003 National Assembly to act upon an 
amended version of the 1972 Municipalities Law, which the GOK 
had introduced during the 2003 session.  The National 
Assembly again took no action on the municipalities bill 
during the 2004 session. 
 
5. (C) MPs and political commentators interviewed by Poloff 
say the GOK did not place the passage of the bill high on its 
list of priorities. They pointed out that the GOK itself had 
waited over a year to take any action on municipal reform, 
and then only moved to ratify the original 2003 decree.  "The 
Government did not exert serious effort to pass the (bill) 
within the specified time," political columnist Ahmed 
Al-Deyan told Poloff  (Comment: Of course, neither did the 
elected MP's.  End Comment).  Deyan had predicted that the 
July 13 session would not produce any action and would "pave 
the way for a crisis." He forecast that the impasse would not 
be resolved until the National Assembly returned to work in 
October, when a quorum of members would be present to take up 
the referred decree and/or the 2003 bill. 
 
6.  (SBU) The three major amendments proposed by the 
government's 2003 bill would have: fixed a hole in the law 
that allows the Municipal Council to override GOK vetoes of 
its proposals, vesting this authority back in the national 
executive; de-linked the Chairmanship of the Municipal 
Council from the Chairmanship of the Kuwait City Municipality 
(seen as an anti-corruption measure); and allowed women to 
vote in elections for the Municipal Council, testing the 
waters vis--vis the GOK,s declared interest in extending 
suffrage to women at the national level. 
 
7. (C) But, say our interlocutors, politics -- specifically, 
an attempt to address a glaringly public corruption problem 
-- is the real motivation behind the government's 2003 
introduction of the amendments as well as the reason no 
action has been taken to resolve the fate of the bill.  "A 
seat on the Municipal Council is your best chance to become a 
millionaire," confided Khalifa Al-Khorafi, a ten year veteran 
of the now dissolved Municipal Council who claims corruption 
among Municipal Council members was so great and so public 
that the government was forced to introduce amendments to the 
1972 law or appear incompetent to the general electorate. 
Khorafi told Poloff the government introduced the 2003 bill 
in order to appear to be addressing the issue of corruption, 
but has in fact done nothing to promote its passage.  "The 
law means more headaches for the Prime Minister," said 
Khorafi, referring to a section of the bill which would give 
the current State Minister for National Assembly Affairs 
Mohammed Dhaifallah Sharar an additional ministerial 
portfolio for Municipalities Affairs, and which would subject 
him to greater scrutiny and possible parliamentary grillings. 
 
8. (C) MP Ahmed Al-Mulaifi told Poloff that little effort was 
put into revisiting the issue of the draft Municipalities Law 
during the 2004 session, but blamed Minister Sharar  -- the 
GOK's point person on this issue -- for dragging his feet. 
Mulaifi said Sharar is pursuing his own political agenda 
rather than supporting Prime Minister Shaykh Sabah 
al-Ahmed,s political goals, which he said include the 
passage of these amendments.  Mulaifi, who called the 1972 
Law a "dinosaur" and who supports drastic reforms, told 
Poloff that members of the Municipal Council had influenced 
Minister Sharar to pursue "intentional negligence."  He said 
the Minister prefers the 1972 law without amendments, as it 
allows him some authority over the Municipal Council while 
not vesting him with political responsibility for what is 
widely acknowledged to be a transparently corrupt 
organization. 
 
9. (C) The Governor of Mubarak al-Kabir (Shaykh Mubarak 
al-Hamad al-Sabah) made identical points as Khorafi  on the 
corrupt state of the municipalities in a July 14 meeting with 
the Ambassador.  He attributed the GOK's move to postpone the 
elections to a desire to complete anti-corruption reforms 
beforehand. 
 
10. (C) Mulaifi, a lawyer, predicted that the crisis would 
eventually end up being resolved in Kuwait's court system. 
In his opinion, the July 5 decree is null and void unless 
taken up by a quorum of the National Assembly within 15 days 
of issuance.  He added that if the government insists on the 
legality of the decree, Kuwaiti citizens would challenge 
decisions by the Municipal Affairs Committee.  When this 
happens, "all of the court cases will be won" by the 
plaintiffs, he predicted. 
 
19. (C) Comment:  We have serious doubts about the viability 
of the critics' constitutional interpretation.  The 
government has the option of referring the matter to the 
Constitutional Court.   That may be where the matter gets 
settled.  Meanwhile, the prospect of true reform of the 
Municipalities Law is postponed at least until fall. 
JONES