Recently, Kuwait has experienced the most extensive anti-government campaign in the history of the country. There is a real danger that the "oil emirate" will be the first country among the Gulf monarchies, where the social unrest will lead to the change of the government. Bloody clashes in economically stable country of the Arabian show that high oil revenues and generous social benefits do not guarantee the security of authoritarian regime.
Emir of Kuwait Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah dismissed parliament two weeks ago. New elections are scheduled for December 1. When the Constitutional Court declared invalid elections in June that were won by the opposition, the country was stroken by the political crisis. Half of deputies were to resign in protest against the decision of the court. To avoid further confrontation between the parliament and the government controlled by the ruling dynasty, the prime minister decided to change the electoral law: now, only one candidate can be elected from each region.
The opposition annoyed by these innovations decided to boycott the upcoming elections and brought the biggest mass protest in the history of the country. Yesterday, according to various estimates, from 30 thousand to 100 thousand of people came out on the streets of Kuwait City. Many of them wore orange ribbons. The demonstrators demanded that the government investigates the activities and dismisses the prime minister.
According to the statement of the Minister of Interior of Kuwait, the police intervened when a demonstration ceased to be peaceful. More than 100 people were injured, including 11 policemen. Many opposition leaders, who were mostly Islamists, were arrested.
Emir of Kuwait was apparently deeply concerned with recent events; unrest has never held such scale before. As reported by the KUNA, state news agency, he gathered an emergency meeting of the leaders of the most powerful clans, so that they swore allegiance to him. The authorities promised "a decisive rebuff" oppositionists (Bbc.co.uk, 2012).
The article directly relates to the class topic as we see that the desire of the prime minister to preserve his power leads to absurd individual behaviour and political crises in the country. His actions are humiliating and insulting to the country citizens.
Generally, political behaviour is a form of participation of the individual in the exercise of political power to protect some particular political interests. The analyzed type of political behaviour is aggressive political action, a form of destructive active political actors on the political relations, the political system of the society, its institutions, and other facilities. The political action constitutes of many factors as well as objective and subjective conditions. Subjective factors include a collection of political knowledge, ideas, and other components, which determine the position, and the ability to choose the subject of the political line of action or inaction. Objective factor includes political organization of the country (Emirates).
When the conflict erupted in other Arab countries, the Kuwaiti authorities usually mentioned the Shiite factor. For example, the former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kuwait, Mohammad Al-Sabah, said that Tehran was behind a civil war in Syria as well as the developments in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (Bbc.co.uk, 2012). However, in case of Kuwait, it is impossible to blame Iran: the vast majority of the population is the Sunnis. The enforcement of actions and generous social benefits that have helped the authorities to deal with the unrest in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, do not seem to work as citizens do not approve the Amir despite high oil revenues with estimated reserves of 100 billion barrels (which allow an average salary of 3.5 thousand dollars).
Protest against corruption and authoritarianism are becoming more widespread in the country. As a result, Kuwait may be the first among the Sunni monarchies of Arabia, where the mass protest will lead to the power shift. This is inevitable despite the fact that 83-year-old ruler has maintained the reputation of the most liberal of the Arabian kings. In 2006, after coming to power, he conducted democratic reform repealing a law banning public gatherings, taking the most liberal law on freedom of the media and allowing women to hold positions in the state apparatus.
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