Tomorrow, Wednesday, the National Assembly will hold a special session to consider and vote on a no confidence motion filed against the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Dr. Ahmed Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah. This comes following the announcement by National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Ali Al-Ghanim during the regular session Tuesday that 10 MPs have submitted a request for a vote of no-confidence in the Minister of Foreign Affairs following the end of the discussion of the interpellation filed against him by MP Shuaib Al-Muwaizri.
Article 101 of the Kuwaiti constitution refers to the responsibility of every minister in the National Assembly for the work of his ministry. It stipulates that “if the parliament decides not to trust a minister, he is considered to have retired from the ministry from the date of the no-confidence decision and to submit his resignation immediately.”
In addition to Articles (143) and (144) of the Council’s internal regulations, the constitutional article stipulated that the request for a vote of no-confidence should be “at the request of the minister or a request signed by 10 members.” The motion of no confidence in the minister has the names of MPs Khaled Al-Otaibi, Hamdan Al-Azmi, Mubarak Al-Hajraf, Fares Al-Otaibi, Dr. Saleh Al-Mutairi, Marzouq Al-Khalifa, Dr. Ahmed Al-Azmi, Muhannad Al-Sayer, Muhammad Al-Mutair and Al-Saifi Al-Saifi.
According to Article (145) of the National Assembly’s bylaw, before voting on a motion of confidence in the session, the Speaker of the Assembly will authorize two of the no-confidence motion presenters or others to speak on this subject, provided that the priority is given to the motion’s presenters in arranging their request. The aforementioned article also stipulated that the president would give permission before voting on the request also to two opponents unless the council saw permission to speak for more than these four members.
In the statement issued after its weekly meeting yesterday, Monday, the Council of Ministers praised the convincing responses given by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs, in which he refuted the axes mentioned in the interrogation document with all merit and competence to confirm its support and solidarity with him.
The interrogation included four axes, the first related to “waste of public money in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of State for Cabinet Affairs and the agencies affiliated with the questioned minister,” according to its introduction. As for the second axis, it came, according to the applicant, regarding what the deputy considered “violation of laws and administrative confusion in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of State for Cabinet Affairs and the agencies affiliated with the questioned minister.”
The third axis came according to what the deputy presented in the interrogation about “the failure to protect the country’s political and security interests and the failure to take care of the interests of the state and its citizens abroad.” The fourth axis dealt with what the deputy saw as “violating international treaties and covenants and the failure of the questioned minister to perform his duties as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Kuwait.”
