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KUWAIT CITY : The Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM) is still studying the issue of granting political rights to women and hasn't taken any decision until now, General Secretary of the movement Dr Bader Al-Nashi told Al-Seyassah. "A decision is expected to be reached within the next three months," he added. Al-Nashi said the Parliament is likely to postpone discussions on this issue to the next parliamentary session, adding "this will give enough time for us to carefully study the issue."
"ICM rejected the earlier Amiri decree on giving political rights to women because of Kuwait's social structure and not due to any religious reasons," Al-Nashi said. "At that time the Kuwaiti society was not prepared for this issue." Personally, I feel women should be given only the right to vote, he continued. Al-Nashi went on to say the movement is negotiating with some political parties for the establishment of a national conference to discuss political reforms, stressing "this conference should include all political parties in the country."
On the relations between the government and ICM, Al-Nashi said, "our movement is a political body which has some obligations while the government is an executive authority. We agree with the government on some issues and don't agree on some others which depend on the issues which are under discussion." Al-Nashi stressed ICM was with the government on amending the number of constituencies, whether it was five, eight or ten, saying "the present number of constituencies is not correct."
Pointing out the recent testimony of the Defense Secretary of the United States was completed in less than two hours, he said, "our people have started to feel grilling is a boring affair. It appears they are not interested such issues which sometimes take even two months to be solved."
He denied ICM was the reason why the grilling of Information Minister Mohammed Abulhassan fell through, adding "arrangements were made for a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and the problem was solved without grilling."
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