'Parliament big enough to include Kuwaitis of all sects'

KUWAIT: Former MP Rakan Al-Nisef speaks during a symposium held at his campaign headquarters Monday night. — Photos by Joseph Shagra

KUWAIT: Former MP Rakan Al-Nisef held a symposium on Monday at his campaign headquarters, where he called on Kuwaitis to vote, emphasizing it's a national duty. "It's great to see those who boycotted the previous elections are participating again after three years. I welcome them today although they distrusted and insulted me. I believe that the parliament is big enough to include Islamists, liberals, women and all sects. Kuwait will be facing many political and economic challenges and we should all face it together. I believe that political work is teamwork based on dialogue," he noted.

Nisef, who is running from the second constituency, vowed to focus on three issues if he enters parliament again. "During the previous elections, I promised my voters to adopt three main issues - political reforms including the right of individuals to litigate at the constitutional court; changing the electoral system to strengthen participation and collective work; and housing, along with eliminating wastage of public funds," stressed Nisef.

According to him, many erroneous laws were issued during the previous parliament. "I didn't agree with many grillings that were not reasonable. Also, many incorrect legislations and laws were issued and approved, and I voted against them, such as prolonging the period of remand, the cybercrime law and the electronic media law. On the other hand, there were good laws approved, such as the commercial agencies law and the municipality law that eliminated violations such as building violations. Some laws were amended, such as the tenders law. We succeeded to pass a law allowing individuals to take their cases to the constitutional court, which protects minorities from the injustice of the majority," Nisef pointed out.

Housing problem

Wrong laws passed by the parliament were behind the housing problem, he said. "After meeting with the Public Authority for Housing Welfare, we realized that the problem is not of availability of public lands, but bad laws. So we started working on two angles - the first was a deal with the government to distribute 12,000 housing units. The second was to scrap the laws that impede the work of the housing authority. During the past three years, 30 percent of houses in the entire history of Kuwait as a modern country were distributed," explained Al-Nisef.

"Today, the housing issue is on the right path, but we need to approve three laws, which should have been approved in October, but the parliament was dissolved. These are the landlords union law, mortgage of new areas and the new housing law, which are all important," he added.

Medical treatment abroad is the most discussed issue in terms of financial corruption and wastage of public funds, Nisef said. "During the time Dr Hilal Al-Sayer was health minister, 1,600 people were treated abroad, while today the number has reached 11,000 cases. This indicates one of two reasons - the bad quality of healthcare here that is getting worse, or that most patients are going for medical tourism," concluded Nisef.

By Nawara Fattahova