Desert Democracy

The Kuwaitis have had about the same difficulty adapting to elections as some of them have had in switching from camels to cars; the country has one of the world's highest traffic-accident rates. Last week, the tiny Persian Gulf sheikdom, whose fabled oil brings it some $750,000,000 in annual royalties, held the second parliamentary election in its history. Everyone knew that Kuwait was ruled by Sheik Sabah Al-Salim Al-Sabah, 51, who became the Amir when his brother died a little over a year ago. Nevertheless, there was plenty of politicking for seats in the 50-member Parliament, which has little real power but confers upon those who sit in it great prestige and, it is widely suspected, considerable wealth. One reason for the prestige was that most of the 468,000 persons who live in Kuwait cannot be candidates; barriers to citizenship are high for the thousands of Arabs who have immigrated since the discovery of oil. Among the 27,000 males who are eligible to vote, however, the Amir allowed more opposition to his government's policies than ever before. Most of it was from leftists who object to his aloofness from the rest of the Arab world and his restrictions on foreigners and the press. "Unless we change," cried their leader, Ahmad Khatib, a physician, "we will end up as the richest anachronism of the modern age." To no one's surprise, the government forces won 45 of the 50 seats, a gain of nine over their 1963 victory. Khatib himself, so say the government vote counters, was defeated.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.