Kuwait Election Thoughts - Are You 'As Mad As Hell and Can't Take It Anymore'?

I am thoroughly enjoying the run up to the Elections, the myriad of satellite shows on Scope TV, AlRai, Nabeeha Tahaluf and others, the campaign headquarter visits, the newspaper and blog articles fueled by scandals and analysis... The media is indeed helping to shape the results of the next election.

Moreover, there is a new spirit in the air; it's a spirit of cynicism, a mistrust of old school government and MPs. Parliamentary candidates are beginning to realize that the public want their quality of life in Kuwait to improve, they demand less bureaucracy, favoritism, more transparency and fairness - they want to spend less time whizzing from one inefficient, power-hungry bureaucrat to another in order to get their business in order - they want to live as citizens, as human beings with decent health care, decent education, with efficient pricing mechanisms on commodities (as the more progressive Gulf states currently do), without worrying about tuberculosis cow scares, environmental pollution and other typically Kuwaiti 'manifestations'.

Citizens are detecting a lack of compassion emanating from both the inept government and various duplicitous parliamentarians; bitter that this affluent country aids others beyond its borders but cannot or will not help its own citizens - citizens who always seem to be at the mercy of a power or water cut, a bureaucrat, a 50KD carrot...

The 'mad prophet of the airwaves' Howard Beale (Peter Finch) howled in the classic 70s drama NETWORK, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore."

Is the Kuwaiti electorate angry enough to make a real difference on May 17^th?

Technorati : kuwait, politics