Nouria Al Sbaih - Al Qabas
Kuwait’s former education minister has accused lawmakers of abusing their positions to ask for favours from ministers.
“There are MPs who are blackmailing ministers. The minister has either to accept their demands, regardless of their legitimacy, or face grilling,” Nouria Al Sbaih, said. “Such practices cannot be called democracy, and are blatant blackmail,” the former minister was quoted as saying by Al Qabas daily on Wednesday.
Kuwaitis must be highly selective in choosing their representatives and must stress competence and not tribalism and sectarianism, she said.
“The people of Kuwait should be the ones who assess the performance of any minister or lawmaker.”
Nouria has had a stormy history with conservative MPs who opposed her nomination in April 2007 as Kuwait’s first woman education minister and shouted and jeered as she took the oath of office after she refused to wear a headscarf in parliament.
One MP, Dhaiffallah Bou Ramia, was forced by parliament Speaker Jassem Al Khurafi to sit down after he stood and shouted during the ceremony. continue reading…
