KUWAIT: National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem gestures as he is surrounded by lawmakers at the National Assembly yesterday. — KUNA

KUWAIT: National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem said yesterday that the current term of the National Assembly is scheduled to close on June 28 after the approval of the state budget. Ghanem said he would call for a special session either on June 24 or 25 to complete the debate on budgets of the independent government bodies which were supposed to have been approved yesterday but the session could not be convened to due to a lack of quorum.

There will be no Assembly sessions through the remaining part of the holy fasting month of Ramadan and the Eid Al-Fitr days. Asked if the Assembly will hold a special session to debate and approve urgent legislation, the speaker said that he did not look into the request, which was submitted yesterday. Eleven lawmakers signed the request which demanded the Assembly meet in a special session to approve a number of draft laws, since the Assembly will now go into summer recess for four months.

Meanwhile, opposition MPs Mohammed Hayef and Jamaan Al-Harbash yesterday called on the government to return the citizenships that had been revoked from leading opposition figures. Hayef said the issue is political in nature regardless of the suspicions they raise about forgery and other alleged violations. He said there were meetings with HH the Amir, HH the prime minister and other ministers to resolve the issue after suspending a planned grilling of the prime minister.

Hayef reiterated that the issue was part of political score settling between conflicting sides, for which a number of people have suffered immensely for the past four years. "The revoked citizenship must be returned at the earliest because the grilling that was suspended can be revived" Hayef said. He said that it was agreed in March 2017 that the citizenships would be returned and the Amir blessed the issue and a committee was formed. The committee returned the citizenship of former MP Abdullah Al-Barghash and his family members, then stopped functioning.

Hayef said the committee has been idle for the past one year but recently the government revived the committee and it is hoped that the citizenships will be returned to the opposition figures. Harbash also said that the issue must be resolved once and for all and citizenships withdrawn for political reasons must be returned as soon as possible.