On May 10, the Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Mishal Ahmad al-Jaber Al Sabah, suspended the National Assembly and locked up a leading opposition politician for social media comments about foreign interference in Kuwait’s domestic affairs. In his address on state television, the Emir announced that the parliament would not remain suspended for more than four years, meaning that the current state of affairs would not exceed the precedents set in 1976 and 1986. Some outside observers have criticized the emir’s actions as violations of Kuwait’s social contract, a rolling back of its relatively liberal norms, and a threat to the long-term health of its democratic institutions.
Not all Kuwaitis are so incensed, however. The reaction I encountered while in the country this past September was more often one of relief. While relaxing over shisha and mocktails with friends, most Kuwaitis I met were hesitant to openly celebrate the decision, understanding that it would be unseemly to trash Kuwait’s proud tradition of democracy in public. But they all noted that privately, there is a lot of support for the Emir’s move.
That should not come as a shock. Kuwaitis have endured years of political melodrama, from the proxy battles between Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed and Sheikh Ahmed al-Fahad to the Islamist-tribal opposition majorities that refused to pass legislation, to the brief but spectacular Shi’a-majority parliament, to the cult of personality surrounding Speaker Marzouq al-Ghanem. In terms of their capacity for larger-than-life media spectacles that are truly divorced from substantive policy-making, Kuwaiti politics embodies the true spirit of America.
Sheikh Mishal is not a politician. In fact, since assuming power in 2023, his efforts to engage with the political class have been halting and awkward. He invited the highly popular and widely respected Dr. Mohammad Sabah to take charge of the government as prime minister, but Dr. Sabah then decided to step down after only five months in office. The emir has sought to amend the laws to revoke the citizenship of those who committed fraud or posed a threat to the state while denying automatic citizenship rights to foreign spouses. This is a controversial move in a country where citizenship is defined by five different categories of historical belonging, each of which carries overtones of nativism, and over 100,000 stateless residents remain without a path to citizenship. However, it would be wrong to dismiss the emir as an authoritarian pandering to conservative voices in society. He is well-trained in security affairs, with a direct approach to governance and a common-sense understanding of national interests. But he is also someone who cares more about getting the job done right than about his own image or his legacy, issuing decrees without much fanfare and moving onto implementation. Rather than attend the UN General Assembly, he would sooner let the current prime minister make the big speech since Sheikh Nawaf Ahmed has a talent for public diplomacy.
The question now is, to what end? The government is operating without parliamentary oversight, which means projects can move forward without hindrance. However, it must show tangible signs of progress while avoiding any major slip-ups that might incur the public’s anger or resentment. It’s a delicate balance.
From 2017 to 2021, the Royal Court directly funded the creation of the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmed Cultural Center, al-Shaheed Park, and the Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Complex. These quickly became the pride of the country, not just in terms of their scope and size but rather in terms of the way that each project involved a core component of unifying Kuwaitis around a shared identity. The concert hall specifically features multiple venues to carry on Kuwait’s long tradition of theater. The names and faces of those who died in the 1990 war with Iraq are etched into the park, and the museum complex features an enormous, lush green space designed for families to enjoy.
That essential element of national identity has made these projects in Kuwait fundamentally different from the large developments taking shape in several other regional capitals. Moreover, it made the son of the previous emir and the driving force behind these projects, Sheikh Nasser Sabah, immensely popular among Kuwaitis before his untimely death from cancer. Today, the Royal Court wants a similar win with its massively ambitious “Silk City” megaproject, a reworking of an older concept for a massive waterfront mixed-use development at the end of the newly completed causeway across the bay. As the title would imply, it is now being pursued in tandem with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Infrastructure is important, but the real agenda moving forward will be far more concerned with defining the future of the Kuwaiti political scene. It is hard to say at this early stage what direction the emir will take, but it seems reasonable to expect that the Royal Court will take a hard look at revising the constitution and confronting the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). The first steps toward governmental and political reform have already been taken with the recent dissolution of the National Security Bureau (NSB) and the cancellation of student elections.
The NSB was almost unique in the Middle East. It involved a couple hundred analysts covering domestic and foreign affairs in a wide range of fields—not operations or collection, but strictly analysis, similar to the internal think tanks that exist in Western governments. However, it was also a place where parliamentarians would sometimes use their connections to get jobs for their unqualified relatives. For decades, the Student Union has served as the starting point for youth to engage in politics and launch their careers, with representation from across the political spectrum. Elections were fiercely contested and helped to foster a real sense of democratic participation at the grassroots level, even if competition sometimes got out of hand, spilling over into fights. However, the Muslim Brotherhood had manipulated the organization to build political alliances with the tribes, and for years, MB politicians had prevented the government from investigating accusations of mismanagement.
Any further moves to curtail MB activities or revise the constitutional authorities of the National Assembly will undoubtedly be met with opposition. Pushing them through will take much more goodwill to build-up from the completion of these megaprojects. However, major infrastructure of that sort is unlikely to be completed soon enough. Should infrastructure success and the accompanying economic boom not arrive in time, the government can pressure the opposition with a sweeping anti-corruption campaign. There are surely more files lingering in the public prosecutor’s office that have been shelved out of consideration for the reputations of the families involved.
The alternative would be a lengthy process of transparent consultation with the public at large in an attempt to shape the policy debate, demonstrate the benefits for society as a whole, and frame the discussion around the long-term need for deep structural reforms. That approach would be more inclusive and popular. Still, it would also require the emir to delegate an enormous amount of responsibility to a cabinet staffed with ministers who have more of a feel for retail politics than Sheikh Mishal. There are already Kuwaiti academics and politicians willing to get out in front and encourage a debate in that direction, with recommendations for increasing the number of parliamentary seats, requiring academic qualifications for candidates, creating an appointed upper chamber, and increasing the powers of the executive branch.
Kuwait is at a crossroads, though you would never know it from the calm and peaceful public reaction to the suspension of parliament. That first step was easy. The next step—in which the government leads by example in demonstrating the new kind of political discourse it hopes to achieve—will be hard.
Joshua Yaphe is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for the National Interest. He previously served as Senior Analyst for the Arabian Peninsula at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), Visiting Faculty at the National Intelligence University (NIU), and scholar-in-residence at the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. He has a Ph.D. from American University and is the author of Saudi Arabia and Iraq as Friends and Enemies: Borders, Tribes and a History Shared (University of Liverpool Press, 2022). The opinions and characterizations in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government.
Image: Fernikon / Shutterstock.com.
