As part of its monthly lecture program, the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies hosted Faisal Abu Sulaib to present his lecture, “Political Tribalism in Kuwait”, on Saturday, 11 May 2024. The Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University and member of the Unit’s advisory board was introduced by researcher Abdulrahman Albaker.

Abu Sulaib started by emphasizing the importance of examining the political role of tribes in Kuwait, and the factors that transformed the tribes from loyal supporters of the government to the political opposition. He used the terms Bedouin and tribes synonymously, in contrast to urban populations (ḥaḍar). From the first National Assembly in 1963 until the 1980s, tribal elites were traditional candidates for the tribe in Kuwait. This is due to their close ties to political authority and respect for the tribal hierarchy. The rise of the religious tide in the region, manifested in the Iranian Revolution, the war in Afghanistan, and the Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca contributed greatly to strengthening tribal loyalty to the government. When the political regime in Kuwait suspended the constitution in 1976 and dissolved the National Assembly unconstitutionally, the government allied with Islamists, especially Sunnis, and specifically with the Muslim Brotherhood, to confront opposition from non-Islamist movements, until 1981, when the National Assembly returned, and the Salafis participated in the elections. These Sunni movements dominated in tribal areas due to their conservative nature, and the authorities found a suitable vessel for coordination and cooperation.

The shift in tribal political loyalties within Kuwait began with the political opposition in the National Assembly in 1985, when Islamic organizations spread across the tribal regions. Members of the Assembly such as Mubarak Al-Duwailah, of the Rashaiyda tribe, representing the Muslim Brotherhood, were the first seeds of this political transformation. The National Assembly was once again dissolved in 1986, resulting in the birth of a political opposition movement in 1989-1990. This opposition established the “Monday Diwaniyat” and met every week to demand the return of parliamentary life and the Kuwaiti constitution, with widescale tribal participation. The authorities responded arbitrarily when these groups began to penetrate areas considered allied to the government.

After the liberation of Kuwait and the restoration of the National Assembly in October 1992, there was another shift in the opposition, according to Abu Sulaib. The tribal sheikhs were replaced by the emergence of a new generation that changed the hierarchy of the tribe in the elections, as they formed symbols in the political opposition, such as Mussalam Al Barrak, who would go on to become a prominent opposition leader. The rise in education among tribal youth in the 1990s was accompanied by a growing feeling of marginalization, exclusion, and lack of social justice, in a way that benefitted the opposition in the parliamentary elections. Internationally, the change in the global system, the emergence of globalization, liberalism, and the spread of freedom and democracy also had an impact. In 2005, a youth movement emerged from the tribes calling to amend the number of electoral districts from 25 to five. Meanwhile, in 2006 political rights were granted to women, with tribal women, especially girls, enrolling at universities, which changed political behaviour and the outcomes of the political process.

The researcher notes a shift in the relationship between the authorities and the tribes from 2009 to 2014, represented by the emergence of an opposition movement dominated by youth. It was evident in the government’s fight in the by-elections that the tribes organized before each official election. This coincided with the beginning of the emergence of the issue of dual citizenship, which was linked inside Kuwait to tribal people. In 2012, the one-vote decree appeared to amend the electoral law, and after it came a broad political movement, called “Dignity of a Nation”, in which tribes participated widely. Large tribes boycotted the 2012 elections, then returned to participate in the National Assembly in 2016 and 2020.

Abu Sulaib concluded by supporting his statements with the results of the field questionnaire he conducted on a sample of 696 tribal members, through which he sought to understand tribal tendencies toward supporting the opposition in Kuwait and the motives that led them to do so. He explored the connection between supporting the opposition and factors such as feeling marginalized and excluded, media targeting, etc. He found that high percentages of respondents who supported the opposition reported feeling marginalized, excluded, helpless, deprived of social justice, and lacking equality, and that media networks deliberately misreported on them and called their patriotism into question. A large percentage of them agreed that parliamentary elections for the National Assembly are an effective means of gaining influence in political society, and that the tribe provides its members with social protection and political power.