Kuwait Opposition Balks at Joining New Cabinet

Opposition leaders balked Monday at signing on to a new interim government in Kuwait, complaining that the ruling emir did not commit to a speedy restoration of the dissolved national Parliament.

A day after Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah’s breakthrough pledge to conduct national elections next year and consider voting rights for women and so-called second-class citizens, opposition leaders were unable to reach agreement on whether to join an interim Cabinet being formed by the crown prince to direct Kuwait’s reconstruction.

“I was expecting something better--something very clear, something very straightforward,” said Ahmed Saadoun, the former Speaker of Kuwait’s dissolved Parliament who unexpectedly returned from exile on Monday. Saadoun said the emir should have immediately reactivated the former Parliament, suspended in 1986 when it became particularly contentious over the Iran-Iraq War. Other opposition leaders say they had hoped to win at least a commitment to elections in the first few months of 1992.

“Most of the political figures I met with today are not satisfied because he (the emir) didn’t give an exact date” for the changes, said Ahmed Bakr, former member of Parliament and co-organizer of a pro-democracy rally that drew hundreds of supporters Monday night.

But backers of the Sabah family dismissed the opposition’s misgivings as posturing at a time when they said the emir has unexpectedly seized the political initiative.

Abdul-Rahman Awadi, minister of state for Cabinet affairs, said it is unlikely that elections could be scheduled before August, 1992, or September, 1992. But another official predicted that other political reforms, including the vote for women and freedom of the press, will be speedily put into place.

Still in doubt is whether the opposition will be able to overcome its reservations and agree to join the ruling Sabah family in forming a new government to replace the Cabinet, which resigned in mid-March in the face of widespread accusations of incompetence.

On Monday, opposition leaders were unable to agree on whether the announcement of 1992 elections is sufficient to warrant joining the new government. A second meeting is scheduled for today.