KUWAIT CITY : Crowd of Candidates
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For the first time since the United States and its Persian Gulf War allies helped free Kuwait from Iraqi occupation, the tiny emirate is scheduled to rejoin the democratic fold next Monday in National Assembly elections.
About 300 candidates from five major political factions are competing for the 50 assembly seats. Among them are reformists from Kuwait’s merchant class, social democrats, Muslim fundamentalists and government officials who were installed by Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah’s royal family after it dissolved the emirate’s last democratically elected Parliament in 1986.
Most diplomatic observers already have praised the prolonged election campaign as a largely vibrant exercise in democracy--even though women are barred from voting in the conservative, oil-rich emirate.
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