No women elected to Kuwait’s new parliament

KUWAIT (Reuters) – Women, participating as voters and
candidates for the first time in Kuwaiti parliamentary
elections, failed to win any seats, results carried by state
media showed on Friday.

The opposition, including Islamists, returned in strength
in the election on Thursday, the results showed.

Analysts said a strong showing by the opposition — a loose
coalition of pro-reform ex-MPs, Islamists and liberals —
raises the possibility of more tension between the new assembly
and the government.

The poll was called after Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad
al-Sabah dissolved parliament last month following a standoff
between the government and opposition over electoral reforms.

None of the 28 women among a total of 249 candidates who
stood for office was able to win a seat in the race. Women make
up 57 percent of the Gulf Arab state’s 340,000 eligible voters.

Women won the right to run for office and to vote in May
2005 in the oil-producing U.S. ally.

Experts had expected voting by the powerful conservative
Islamists and tribes would hurt chances of women candidates.

The results showed the opposition, united mostly by a stand
against what they called government-sponsored corruption, won
nearly two-thirds of the seats.

Twenty out of 29 reformist ex-MPs who formed the nucleus of
the opposition alliance were re-elected to the 50-member
National Assembly. They were joined by about nine new members,
including prominent figures in opposition circles, new
Islamists and young liberals who ran on anti-corruption
platforms.

The Islamists, who had a 15-man bloc in the previous house
allied with the opposition, won the same number of seats.

(Additional reporting by Mahmoud Harbi)