The New York Times

Tuesday, November 23, 1999

Kuwaiti Women's Rights Law Rejected

By Reuters

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Kuwait's parliament on Tuesday rejected a historic decree by the ruler of the Gulf state granting full political rights to women.

Parliament voted 41-21 against the decree, the opposition coming mainly from Islamist and tribal members of the house.

But supporters of the decree giving women the right to vote and stand for election in the conservative Arab state salvaged some hope by forcing an identical draft law to the top of parliamentary agenda. It is expected to be discussed next Tuesday and is given a better chance of being passed.

The opposition-dominated parliament also voted down five other decrees in a show of unity and muscle-flexing, effectively rejecting all laws ``imposed'' on the elected house by the government.

The emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah had decreed that women be given full political rights by 2003.

But opponents quoting verses from the Koran holy book and religious edicts argued that the majority of Kuwaiti people were opposed to granting women full political rights.

Women comprise around 50 percent of the 800,000 Kuwaitis and are regarded as the most liberal in the region outside Iran.

Parliament has yet to vote on several other pending decrees aimed at liberalizing the state-controlled economy and opening it to all foreigners for direct and indirect investment.

Western diplomats watching the parliamentary developments expected these decrees to meet a similar fate.

Several MPs accused the government of taking away their powers by issuing laws in decree form, arguing that they failed to meet a constitutional requirement which allows the emir to only issue urgent decrees in parliament's absence.

The government said in a statement read by Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah before the vote that the women's decree was urgent to correct the status of Kuwait's democracy. The statement reminded parliament it was an explicit order by the emir, who has ruled over Kuwait since 1978.

Sheikh Jaber had dissolved parliament in 1986 at the height of the Iraq-Iran war, citing security concerns. It was restored a year after a U.S.-led military coalition forced Iraq out of the oil-rich state in the 1991 Gulf War.

Since then parliament has proved to be no rubber stamp, launching probes into alleged corruption and financial scandals. It also forced the government to resign twice after the questioning of ministers in the house.