WE had the occasion recently (August 13) to explore politics in Kuwait. Today I propose to examine some of the procedures its parliament employs to oversee the executive. Any member of the National Assembly (parliament) in Kuwait can ask a question to draw a minister’s attention to a grievance, his own or that of a constituent, and get him to promise redress. Five members can initiate debate on a specific situation or policy, or call for the formation of a committee to investigate a ministry’s operations.

Of particular interest to us today is a procedure called “interpellation,” that Kuwait has borrowed from some of the West European parliaments. It starts out as an extended question, including a list of accusations, posed to a minister, to which he submits a written answer. At some point, while the accusations and the minister’s answers are being considered, the movers (three members) may attach a motion of censure to the interpellation, which may subsequently be debated and voted in the House.

An interpellation is serious business. Over a period of some 40 years (1963-2004), only 29 interpellations were initiated, more of them during the last 10 years or so than in any previous period. Some of them led to motions of censure against an individual minister, while others resulted in his assurance to investigate the matter at hand. In some cases, an interpellation caused the minister concerned (in one case the entire cabinet) to resign, and twice it culminated in the assembly’s own dissolution (1996 and 1999).

I propose to present two case studies of interpellations in recent years. Much of the information provided below comes from an article by Professor Kamal O. Salih (Kuwait University), which appeared in the Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (spring 2006).

Three members of the National Assembly moved an interpellation against Nasir Al Rawdan, minister for finance, on July 5,1997. They made the following accusations: he had failed to collect funds owed to the state, and thus neglected to implement the relevant law and protect the public interest.

It seems the government had zoned certain tracts of land for future housing projects. Their owners subdivided the land into plots, fenced them, but withheld sales, waiting for prices to rise. A law made in 1994 levied a tax of one half of a Kuwaiti dinar (KD) for every square metre of holdings beyond a designated size. Apparently, many of the owners did not pay this tax and, despite reminders from a parliamentary committee, the ministry did not provide a list of defaulters.

The movers further asserted that the cabinet had reduced the rent on state-owned land, to be used for industrial purposes, from 200 ‘fils’ to 100 fils per square metre (1991-92), that the ministry itself had reduced the rent on land reserved for ‘sea bungalows’ from 500 to 250 fils per square metre, and that these measures profited small interest groups rather than the general public. There was a third bunch of accusations, containing the nitty-gritty of certain bank deposits and withdrawals, lending and borrowing, which we shall omit.

The minister maintained, first, that the movers of the interpellation had been motivated by their personal hostility towards him. They had, by their own admission, planned their move within a few months of his having taken office, before he had had the time to get fully acquainted with its requirements and the work it entailed. Second, he argued that he could be held accountable only for matters that lay within his jurisdiction but not for decisions made by the cabinet as a whole. Third, he maintained that he should not have to answer for decisions made and actions taken by his predecessor; that being the case with regard to the rent on ‘sea bungalows.’

The minister concluded his response with the observation that the country’s economy had been performing superbly during his years in office: the returns from its foreign investments exceeded those from oil by 20 per cent; currency reserves had increased substantially; the government had paid all foreign debts without having to liquidate any of the nation’s assets; its credit rating had improved; and the IMF had praised Kuwait’s economic performance in is report for 1997. (Recall similar claims made by our own official spokesmen.)

The movers of the interpellation were not mollified. They said the minister had not addressed the issue of non-implementation of certain laws, and that some of his claims (e.g., the one about returns from foreign investments) were false. Even if some of the wrongdoing had happened before his time, he had done nothing to correct it. But they failed to get the required 10 supporters to initiate a no-confidence motion against him. The assembly did, however, call upon the government to implement all laws referred to in the interpellation and report progress.

The interpellation had other effects. The cabinet conceded the existence of deficiencies in some ministries and called for their rectification. The finance minister also admitted as much, and promised to remove the ones that afflicted his ministry. But it seems that he felt damaged and decided to resign his post a month later (November 1997).

Six months later (January 27, 1998), three members moved an interpellation against the minister for information, Shaykh Saud Al Nasir Al Sabah (a member of the ruling family). They said his ministry had allowed the placement of publications contrary to Islamic doctrine in a book exhibition earlier the same month. Moreover, the ministry did nothing to stop the circulation of such books even when it knew of them.

The minister admitted that a serious error had been made and said he had taken steps to prevent its repetition. This did not satisfy the movers, who wanted some of the top officials in the ministry to be sacked.

Liberals in the assembly and outside saw this interpellation as a part of the Islamists’s design to dominate all organs of the state. The Islamists, they said, wanted a confrontation with the ruling family and the government, which would lead to violent conflict. They argued also that the constraints the Islamists wished to impose on publications would undermine individual liberty. The proponents of the interpellation maintained that, Islam being the state religion, it was the state’s duty to preserve Islamic values, and that a concept of liberty, which allowed individuals to attack and destroy these values would not be acceptable in Kuwait.

The assembly’s education committee, which had been asked to examine the issue, reported (March 8, 1998) that the ministry had indeed committed a grave error, for which the minister must be held responsible. The Islamic deputies then tabled a no-confidence motion against the minister, which was to be debated on March 17. But the government, fearing that the minister would not survive the vote, resigned the day before. The prime minister reorganised his cabinet, withdrew Sheikh Saud Al Sabah from the information ministry and assigned him another portfolio (oil). The government’s resignation to avoid a no-confidence motion was the first of its kind in Kuwait’s experience.

A few months later the same year (June 1, 1998), an interpellation was moved against Shaykh Mohammed Ali Khalid Al Sabah (also a member of the ruling family), the interior minister on the ground that he was doing a poor job of maintaining law and order, and that the crime rate in Kuwait had greatly increased (drugs, spread of weapons, rising incidence of violence, drinking and gambling, prostitution) to the detriment of the citizen’s safety and security. I do not have the space for the details of this, or any other, interpellation. Suffice it to say that the movers eventually withdrew it.

We hear a great deal of talk about the desirability of establishing parliamentary supremacy in Pakistan, but that has been an ever-receding goal. I do not recall any instance of a no-confidence motion having been filed in the National Assembly during our first two parliamentary regimes (1947-58, 1963-77). No government has ever fallen, and no minister has ever resigned his office, as a result of parliamentary disapproval. The no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1996, and the one recently filed against Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz , are the only exceptions, and neither of them reached the stage of a full-scale debate. It is well known that the executive in Pakistan has consistently ignored, bypassed, even insulted and humiliated, parliament.

The parliament in Kuwait, by contrast, appears to have been vibrant and dynamic especially since the country’s liberation from Iraqi occupation in 1992. Not only has it had an autonomous role in lawmaking, its oversight of the executive has been detailed, specific, vigorous, and effective, covering not only issues of policy but also lapses in performance. Ministers have left office, and in one case the government as a whole resigned, as a result of criticism voiced against them in parliament. How do we explain the parliament’s liveliness in Kuwait as contrasted by its feebleness in Pakistan?

A few possibilities may be considered. Unlike Pakistan, whose political culture is informed predominantly by a feudal ethos and practice, the political culture of Kuwait has been formed largely by merchants, given to bargaining and therefore receptive to democratic give-and-take. It has been made, to a lesser extent, by tribal folks who have traditionally maintained a substantial degree of equality of rights.

Second, the constitution of 1962, and the political system it created, are well accepted, and the country’s raison d’etre (reason for existence) is not in dispute, which is a lot more than what we can say for Pakistan.

Third, the government is not the creature of an institutionalised majority in parliament. It may or may not have majority support in the house. But except when a no-confidence motion is being debated, voting in parliament does not affect the government’s tenure. It means also that members of parliament are free to say and vote as the spirit moves them from one issue to the next.

In the pursuit of “real” democracy Kuwait appears to be ahead of Pakistan.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA. Email: anwarsyed@cox.net

WHENEVER the streets get congested with traffic, which is often, or flooded by rains, which is once in a while, two thoughts arise instantly: one, all civic services should be placed under one civil authority, now the nazim; and, two, traffic control should be taken away from the police.

The idea, or the demand, to bring vehicular traffic, amenities like land, water, sewerage, and resources like taxes on property, professions and goods all under one authority is as old as Pakistan itself. It reasserts itself more forcefully during an emergency. The actual trend, however, is to the contrary. New organisations are created every now and then in the name of ‘specialisation’ to take over functions that were traditionally, and perhaps more economically, performed by the district or municipal administration.

In the current rain disaster, Karachi’s embattled nazim has demanded that all authority should vest in him. Influenced by the dominant military parlance, he has asked for the unity of command — the nazim being the symbol and focus of that unity. The chances of his demand being conceded are next to nil, notwithstanding the president’s personal stake in the success of the nazims and his expectation that they, along with thousands of councillors, would be his cohorts in dealing with the old established political forces opposed to him.

The unity of command, which implies the concentration of all powers in one man, is alien to our traditional administrative system, even though the National Reconstruction Bureau considers the latter to be “rooted in feudal imperialism”. In this system, now on the wane, every department or autonomous body — provincial or federal — does its own job. The commissioner, deputy commissioner and assistant commissioner only facilitate or coordinate their activities at the division, district and sub-division (taluka or tehsil) levels. This responsibility at all three levels has now devolved on the nazim.

The coordination role is neither defined nor codified anywhere. It is performed through skill, experience and, as the colonial administrators expected, by the demonstrable superiority of the coordinator. The central feature of ‘command’ is obedience, that of ‘coordination’ collective exertion.

The Karachi nazim, despite the support of the president to his office, should not expect that the control of defence and port lands will ever be handed to him. Nor is there the remotest possibility of the cantonments one day becoming a part of the local government set-up. The NRB chairman shilly-shallied during the discussions on devolution preceding the introduction of the new system when he was asked why the cantonments were being left out of it. What is sauce for the goose of the civil administration should also be the sauce for the gander of the military. He put the proposition off to the next round of elections. Then it was altogether shelved. The issue is no longer open to debate in public or in the legislature.

The exclusion of the cantonments and other privileged or special areas from the district governments should not give the nazims a peg on which to hang the blame for their own failings. The fact of the matter is that the devolution plan was conceived to break the hold of bureaucracy and to weaken the provinces in order to buttress the new power structure and thus to block hostile political forces — chiefly the parties led by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif — from public life for a generation.

The district governments have been created to serve a purpose and not to represent an ideal — which is why their powers are being whittled down as political parties, despondent to begin with, gain ascendancy. The district governments, contrary to the scheme of things, are also acting politically giving up all pretence of neutrality and have become, in fact, an extension of the federal authority in the provinces.

While complaining about the cantonments, ports, industrial and housing estates and even the steel mill as islands of authority outside Karachi’s municipal system, the nazim should have also acknowledged that the 18 towns into which the city is divided are equally defiant of his authority, especially where the town nazim happens to belong to the opposing party.

To be able to help the people in crises and to provide essential services in normal times, the district governments and the lower councils must view themselves as humble civic bodies and not as the power base of a political pyramid. The nazims should concern themselves with the sweeping of streets, lifting of garbage, flood drainage, water supply, primary education, health and similar activities and not indulge in dreaming of women universities, cardiac centres, monorails and skyscrapers as Niamatullah Khan did for four years and as his successor is doing now. The city government neither has the calibre nor the resources to embark on such ventures.

The basic civic functions should be all performed by the towns, talukas and unions. The district government itself should take care only of the common services like bulk water supply, flood drains, trunk sewers, public buses, environment and building control. The cantonment boards and other authorities surely would not object to such an arrangement so long as their lands are not coveted by the district government and the management of internal services is also left to them.

The essential requirement is that the district governments should behave and act like non-political civic bodies and not as party governments in which Mustafa Kamal of the MQM lays the blame for choked drains at the door of his predecessor, JI’s Niamatullah Khan, who in turn complains that every good that his party had done for the city has been undermined by the MQM.

The other point raised was about the transfer of traffic control from the police to the district government. It is correct that the fundamental duty of the police is to maintain order and to prevent and investigate crime. Traffic planning and management is an altogether different discipline. Being posted to the traffic branch is considered a reward for tired or favourite policemen. The transfer to district government, however, is unlikely to change this attitude.

The remedy lies in organising an urban traffic police on the lines of the motorway police where the offenders are punished by well-paid patrolling officials on the spot and, amazingly, no one is spared. Road discipline has, indeed, completely broken down, and of all places in Karachi. Vehicles drive through the red lights, the most bizarre and dangerous of all traffic offences, while a clutch of traffic men stand and squirm.

The agony and loss that the people have undergone for more than a week by wading through inundated roads coupled with traffic snarls should persuade the government to reorganise the municipal system and all the urban services. Look at the deterioration over the years: in August this year it rained one-fourth as much as it did in August 1967, but the misery and disruption has been four times greater.