By B Izzak

KUWAIT: National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem, who last week won a third term as speaker, yesterday called on lawmakers to stay away from personal disputes and cooperate to achieve the aspirations of the Kuwaiti people. Ghanem also said that he has invited MPs for a meeting tomorrow to elect members of the Assembly's permanent and temporary committees.

But five MPs opposed to Ghanem yesterday filed a second request calling for an investigation into incidents that happened during the speaker's election, including allowing a group of Ghanem supporters to enter the house gallery. MPs Mubarak Al-Hajraf, Marzouq Al-Khalifa, Osama Al-Shaheen, Abdulkarim Al-Kandari and Thamer Al-Suwait said that some MPs posted on social media ballot papers for the speaker's election that looked fake, as they did not carry the Assembly's official stamp.

They demanded a comprehensive investigation into this matter and the role of the Assembly's secretariat in this affair. The lawmakers claimed that a group of unauthorized people were allowed into the Assembly building and the chamber days before the speaker's election, and they were accompanied by members from the Assembly secretariat. They called to review the cameras in the Assembly building to track down those people.

They also demanded a probe into how invitations for the Assembly's inaugural session were distributed and the role of the Assembly secretariat and Assembly guards in this matter. Last week, five MPs filed a similar request to launch an investigation into what happened during the inaugural session of the new Assembly. MP Suwait later described the inaugural session as a "Black Tuesday", arguing that the will of the nation was forged in the speaker's election.

He said opposition MPs have agreed to prepare a blacklist of names of the "gang" that entered the Assembly chamber on the inaugural day. Opposition MP Bader Al-Dahoum called on the Kuwaiti people to come to the Assembly tomorrow to attend the session and to "regain the seats of the people that were the subject of a conspiracy".

Meanwhile, the constitutional court yesterday received the eighth challenge against the National Assembly election. The petition calls on the court to nullify the results of the election because people were not asked to remove their masks to establish their identities while casting their ballots.