Kuwaiti crown prince to stay in office; political parties

The speaker of the Kuwaiti Ummah (parliament) Jazem al-Khurafi announced on Sunday that the ruling family in Kuwait does not intend to remove the crown prince Sheikh Saad al-Abdullah al-Sanah, considering that time is till not ripe to the creation of political parties in Kuwait.

The Kuwaiti official news agency (Kuwana) quoted al-Khurafi as saying during his visit to Qatar on Saturday "the crown prince will remain in his place and there is no intention by the Royal family to make any change to this end."

The Kuwaiti dailies quoted al-Khurafi as saying that his country is in need of enacting political parties laws in the future but "the time is inappropriate to form parties," adding that the "matter is in need of more time, especially that the election operation in Kuwait is still made according to personal contacts between the candidate and the voter, and according to ethnic, tribal or family links."