Following months of grueling campaigns, set amidst a tense, competitive backdrop, featuring both ‘The Economic Family Bloc’ and ‘The Chamber Bloc’, as well as Independent Candidates, elections for the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry ended today with a resounding victory for the ‘Economic Family Bloc.’ The polls closed at 8pm and unlike previous elections, the ballot counting was manual, not electronic (due to requests by members of the ‘Chamber Bloc’); this in turn led to over 12 hours of ballot-counting by the Election Committees.
Decisive results were known at around 8am this morning: incumbent KCCI Chairman Ali Al-Ghanim and the ‘Economic Family Bloc’ won a landslide victory – a wide margin over their competitors – all twelve of their members re-elected.
Results are indicative of the private sector’s desire to maintain stability, equilibrium and continuity in the Chamber of Commerce And Industry; moreover, results telegraph a strong message to any external elements that might have wanted to politicize or exploit the Kuwaiti business community for the sake of demagogic cheap thrills.
(Check Kuwait Times Article for reference).
KCCI Headquarters
An Interview Featuring KCCI Member Mr. Dharar Al-Ghanim
The ‘Chamber Group’ Headquarters
The ‘Economic Family Group’ Headquarters
Re-elected KCCI Chairman Mr. Ali Al-Ghanim
KCCI Election Committees Burning The Midnight Oil
Still lacking sleep from that day! What a great day after all that!
A) Welcome back!!!
B) Lebowski, dude, I need your help, bad.. email me.
Marzouq – One of the best days… productive, enjoyable, alongside a great community. A 20 hour day that literally went into our and *their* history books!
Aziz – I sent you the email, good to hear from you again. Hope all is well.
I read the whole thing in the Kuwait Times. Amer, to an outsider, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Chamber of Commerce . . . is this organization influential (in the US it has been mainly sidelined) The family names of the group in the landslide – significant? I sense this is all SIGNIFICANT but I can’t figure out why!
Maybe this will help Intlx:
http://arabtimesonline.com/kuwaitnews/pagesdetails.asp?nid=15935&ccid=9
“‘Vote-buying’ in 2nd Constituency
KUWAIT CITY: At a time when there appears to be a relative calm in the government’s campaign against vote-buying, evidences of a similar phenomenon are unfolding in the Second Constituency which, sources say, is aimed at toppling one of the candidates in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Sources revealed the deal is an extension of what allegedly happened in the elections at Kuwait Chamber of Commence and Industry (KCCI). After some parties failed to prevent one of the prominent economic personalities from winning the KCCI elections, sources said these parties are now fighting ‘tooth and nail’ to prevent the son of a prominent personality — who is standing for the parliamentary elections from the Second constituency — from winning a seat.”
And I thought we had some problems here in the UK tryng to vote for a new London Mayor!
Tim
(Great Blog)
Welcome Tim ~ looks like you’ve all elected the first Conservative London mayor in over 30 years!