The Parliament of Kuwait is unicameral.

• Name of Parliament: the National Assembly (Al Majlis Al-Umma)
• Number of seats: 50
• Term of legislature: 4 years
• Required age for voting: 21
• Required age for membership: 30

The members of the National Assembly are directly elected in 25 multi-member (2 seats) constituencies by majority vote. Voting is not compulsory.

Kuwait was the first country to have an elected parliament in the Arab Gulf region in 1963 (1). The current Parliament is the 10^th since the independence of Kuwait in 1961. The Parliament was suspended by the Amir from 1976 to 1981 and from 1986 to 1991.

The President of the Parliament is Jasem Mohammad Abdulmuhsen Al-Khurafi.

Taking into account that women (see below), Kuwaitis naturalised less than 20 years ago and members of the police and armed forces are forbidden to vote, only 15% of the citizens are effectively allowed to vote.

The prerogatives of the Assembly are limited: the Amir, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah can cancel any decision taken in parliament and can disolve the assembly. Still, parliament holds significant influence and can block Amir’s decisions (see below about women voting right). The right of interpelation or the right to question ministers "with regard to matters falling within their competence" has caused many tensions with the government in several occasions.

The Prime Ministership was traditionally attributed to the Crown Prince. In an attempt to respond to the demands on political reforms, the Amir of Kuwait appointed Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah as Prime Minister in July 2003, removing the premiership from the state’s Crown Prince for the first time since the country’s independence (Sheikh Saad Al-Abdallah Al-Salem Al-Sabah had hold both roles since 1978). The new Prime Minister named a 15-member Cabinet in which members of the ruling family kept key posts, including interior, foreign affairs and defence.

Last legislative elections: 05 July 2003

Candidates	Seats
Pro-Cabinet	20
Islamist	16
Independents	12
Liberals	2

In the last elections there were 148 candidates running for the 50 places. The turnout of these elections was 81%. Half of the Assembly seats were won by new candidates.

Previous elections: 03 July 1999 and 07 October 1996.

Political parties:

Voters elect mouvements or tendencies rather than political parties, divided roughly along pro-Western liberal lines, islamists and independents. Several traditional groupings or quasi-political organizations exist and political parties are tolerated but not formally allowed. Candidates usually run as independents. Local tribal loyalties play a key part when voters cast their ballots.

• Kuwaiti Democratic Forum: Group of arab nationalist figures who purusue a secularist, Arab nationalist agenda. They have often criticised cabinet ministers. They have called for the extension of voting right to women and the legalisation of political parties. This liberal group were one of the strongest supporters for the separation of the post of premiership from the crown prince.
• The Islamic Constitutional Movement: Islamist movement based on the Sunnite population and it is said to be the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.
• Islamic Popular Movement: Sunnite islamist grouping.
• National Islamic Coalition: Shiite islamist movement. (Shiite population in Kuwait is estimated to be between 25% and 35%).
• The Constitutional Bloc: Movement representing the country’s powerful merchant families.
• Tribal groupings: They held a sort of primaries and agree to vote for certain a candidate. Although once in Parliament, the deputy can ally himself with either the government or the islamists, the protection of tribal interests remains the main goal.
• Independents: Candidates with no specific classification, although once in Parliament they ally with groups.

Some features:

The pre-election period of the 1996 legislative elections was marked by gatherings of women demanding political rights, including the suffrage.

On 4 May 1999 Amir Jaber al-Sabah dissolved the previous parliament to bring an end to more than two years of conflict between opposition MP's and the government (in which al-Sabah family members had key portofolios: oil, finance, defence, interior and foreign affairs).

The Amiri decree of 16 May 1999 intending to give women the right to vote and run for the elections of 2003 was rejected by the new parliament on November 30, 1999 (32 against, 30 in favour, 2 abstentions). Liberal, pro-governmental and Shia islamists parliamentarians were in favour of the decree while Sunni islamists and tribal MP's opposed it. The rejection seemed motivated mostly by a refusal to confirm a decree of the Amir and a new proposal, written by a committee of the Assembly, could be considered in the near future. The number of female voters is estimated at 137.000.

2003 elections were the first without Saddam Hussein ’s shadow. The absence of the ‘great danger’, which had dominated Kuwaiti politics for a decade, opened the way for some freedom and vitality in the Parliament.

On the day of the elections, hundreds of women staged their own elections to highlight their demand for political representation. They mostly elected for liberal candidates (it was the Islamic and tribal tendencies who stood against the decree offering women voting rights, issued by the Amir of Kuwait in 1999).

The changes in the region were expected to foster the liberal mouvement and thus fovorise political reforms in the Emirate. However, the liberals were nearly left out from the parliament, keeping only two of the eight seats they hold in previous assembly. Islamic traditionalists, both Sunni and Shia, and the pro-cabinet candidates were the winners of these elections. The government's firmer control of the current legislature makes it easier to pass long-delayed economic reforms, including the sale of state utilities.

Notes:
(1) Bahrain was the second country in the Gulf to have an elected Assembly (1973) but also the first to dissolve it (1975). Bahrain hold legislative elections again in October 2002.

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