KUWAIT CITY, May 4: Kuwait’s all-male parliament on Tuesday failed to approve a bill that would have allowed women to vote and stand for election in time for forthcoming municipal polls, its speaker said. Later in the day, the government issued a decree scheduling those elections for June 2.

“The voting has been deferred to the next session in two weeks,” Jassem al Khorafi told reporters after a heated three-hour debate by MPs over a legal deadlock following Monday’s vote that failed to reach a decision. The postponement was requested by Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al Ahmad al Sabah just before a re-vote was due to take place, apparently after he felt the government did not have the required number to pass the bill.

The vote on the bill on Monday failed to achieve a quorum after 29 MPs backed the legislation, the same number abstained and two voted against.

The speaker then declared the bill was in a “limbo” as it had been ‘neither accepted nor rejected’.

Islamist and tribal MPs fiercely opposed to enfranchising women protested that any debate on the bill should have been dropped altogether after it failed to achieve a quorum. But the speaker said parliament’s constitutional experts have come up with three opinions.

One said the bill had been passed, the second said it was neither passed nor rejected and a new vote must take place, while the third said it failed. During the debate, almost all 45 MPs attending the session spoke, accusing each other of violating the constitution and the country’s laws.

Sheikh Sabah said after the session he remained “absolutely confident that Kuwaiti women will get their rights” after two weeks. The speaker told reporters that a decree calling municipal elections would now be issued “within days”, meaning that “Kuwaiti women will not be able to take part” even if parliament votes later this month to give them the vote.

Tuesday’s decree setting the polls for June 2 set the start of candidate registrations from Wednesday, ending on May 13. Last month, parliament approved in principle a government-proposed bill to delay the elections until October to enable women to take part. That bill becomes obsolete after the decree was issued. Women will participate in municipal council elections to be held in 2009 if parliament approves the bill in the session scheduled for May 16.

The municipal council, whose powers are mainly organizational, is a civic body in which 10 members are elected while the remaining six are appointed by the amir. It is elected every four years.

Women members can however be appointed in the next council if the bill is approved by parliament. Leading woman activist Rula Dashti said that despite the disappointment, she was pleased that women were virtually certain to participate in the 2009 municipal polls.

“It’s important that we got the first step. Democracy is a (long) process. We are talking about the future of the country ... We have waited for 40 years and we can wait for a few more,” Dashti told reporters in parliament.

A government bill to grant women the right to vote and stand in parliamentary elections has not yet been discussed by a parliamentary panel although MPs on March 7 agreed that its debate must be speeded up.

Amir Sheikh Jaber al Ahmad al Sabah, who favours giving women the vote, issued a decree in 1999 granting women full political rights but it was narrowly rejected by parliament the same year. —AFP