Politics, the golden verb/adjective/noun of a democracy. Lets dissect the politics of Kuwait. We live in a ‘constitutional emirate’ called the State of Kuwait. Two things that make this statement a bold statement, is the fact we have, harmony between the constitution and the emirate, and we have a democratic process in Kuwait [namely people-elected government].

Now lets dissect the word people here. Basically two kinds of people, citizens and expatriates. Ratio of population of citizens vs. expats is around 45% : 55% [Kuwaiti 45%, other Arab 35%, South Asian 9%, Iranian 4%, other 7%]. I belong to the 55% group. As an expat Kuwait has given me much more than I could have asked for, a good job, a great social environment, security for me and my family, respect for my work, and above all a chance to see myself here in future. Some of you may agree with me, some of you would be bursting out with a big NO-WAY, some of you would be smirking at me for my cheesy sucking-up statements. But hey this is me expressing myself ‘truthfully’.

So how does this relate to the politics? When I started this blog, my first promise to myself was to stay away from politics. Reason for this is well known, political noise in Kuwait is un-affordable for expatriates. We have all heard horror stories of bloggers who have been stung high and dry irrespective of their political affiliations for being too political. Even citizens cant be spared for this, so being an expat is a nightmare scenario. Yet time and again, there is this feeling inside me, that only if I knew some politician, I would be more safer than safe. In case of a tight situation, be it some problem with local authorities or some minor incident here or there, it would be good to know your local politician, who could voice in for you. Now just don’t jump to the word Wasta.

Wasta is used to get you out of a tricky situation. What I am trying to convey here is that I would like to know my local politician(s) in way I can express my concerns across which would be affecting more than me. Consider a simple example, the building that I live in and nearby buildings, at last count 8 of them have around 350-400 apartments in total. Lets say there is one car per apartment totaling to around 400 cars. Now our problem is that the building owners of these buildings in their collective wisdom have decided to close all basement parkings by converting them to commercial warehouses [which is illegal]. This causes us residents tremendous problems to find car parking, and many including myself have to resort to parking nearly block away from our building. And before we even find parking we would probably circle around our home at least a dozen times in hopes of finding a lucky spot that has just been vacated. This becomes worse in case you are returning from grocery shopping and you have a dozen or so bags to carry around for that distance, or you have young kids who would have to walk all over the block to get to home, or if women have to walk through the same path in night returning back to home. Now who should I complain about this? To the police? To the local authorities? I think I will be hitting my head on a brick wall unless I am accompanied by someone political enough to raise his/her voice. This is an endemic situation which can be controlled by political stance by imposing stringent laws on commercial entities.

Another example is rising cost of goods and rents. Now politicians have all agreed to pump more money to citizens which totals to the monthly salary of at least 3 maids. Great now they can offset the cost of living against that grant. But think of those maids or other expats who total around 50% of the population as to how they would cope up with the rising cost of living and expenses. I dare say give the grant to expats, but rather than that, how about securing a mechanism that would curb the rising inflation, or at least guarantee some subsidy towards essential and very basic goods like food for general population. And how about proposing a blanket control over rents? I believe most of expats payout around 30% of their paycheck back into Kuwait’s economy as rents. Consider this as our Income Tax to Kuwait’s economy. Remember there is more to such payback like living expenses. Rent money as we all say is dead money, its not an investment into future, but its our tax of present.

The basic necessities like obtaining a driving permit or calling ones family here even for visit seems like a nether zone. The legal framework has disbarred us from these by imposing minimum salary requirements to hefty charges. If these laws are relaxed, the money will be invested back into the Kuwait’s economy whether its buying a car, to fuel, to expenses for additional members in the family. Is there any politician who will raise this issue across the parliament on our behalf? Like I said I don’t know who my politician is, and I dare you expats out there if you know who your local politician is/was.

I believe there is an opportunity here for all politicians to expose themselves to us expats.We wont bite, we wont cling on you like a sticky gum, we wont pester you, but if you lend us an ear we will embrace you with open arms. After-all we are as they say the other half of Kuwait. Don’t look at us as a statistics, we are all here for you, us and Kuwait.

Politically Yours,

Me