Constitution
The Constitution of Kuwait was ratified in 1962 and has elements of a presidential and a parliamentary system of government. The Emir is the head of State and has the power to appoint the Prime Minister, dissolve the Parliament and even suspend certain parts of the Constitution.
The Constitution expressly supports political organizations, but they remain illegal as no law has arisen to define and regulate them. MPs tend to serve as Independents or as members of some loose affiliation or faction based on philosophy, sect, class or clan.
Citizens who have reached the age of 21 years, are not in the military and have not been convicted of a crime, can vote. Parliamentary candidates must be eligible to vote and at least 30 years old.
Read more about this topic: Politics Of Kuwait
Famous quotes containing the word constitution:
“What we learn for the sake of knowing, we hold; what we learn for the sake of accomplishing some ulterior end, we forget as soon as that end has been gained. This, too, is automatic action in the constitution of the mind itself, and it is fortunate and merciful that it is so, for otherwise our minds would be soon only rubbish-rooms.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)
“Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that “we, the people,” should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?”
—Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4 ch. 5, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)