Early general elections were held in

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

on 26 November 2016. They follow the dissolution of the parliament elected in 2013 by Emir

Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah ( ar, الشيخ صباح الأحمد الجابر الصباح, translit=ash-Shaykh Sabāh al-ʾAḥmad al-Jābir aṣ-Ṣabāḥ; 16 June 192929 September 2020) was the Emir of Kuwait and Commander of the Kuwa ...

in October 2016. Under the

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

, elections must be held within two months. Opposition candidates won 24 of the 50 seats in the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

.Kuwait poll: Opposition wins nearly half of parliament
Al Jazeera, 27 November 2016 Voter turnout was around 70 percent.

Electoral system

The 50 elected members of the National Assembly were elected from five 10-seat constituencies by

single non-transferable vote Single non-transferable vote or SNTV is an electoral system used to elect multiple winners. It is a generalization of first-past-the-post, applied to multi-member districts with each voter casting just one vote. Unlike FPTP, which is a single-winn ...

Results

Opposition Islamist candidates (Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi) won around half of the 24 seats won by the opposition, whilst the Shia minority was reduced to six seats from ten seats. One woman was elected, with only around 20 of the 42 MPs seeking re-election retaining their seats. Members of Kuwait's largest tribes together won just seven seats in the election, down from fifteen.After big election win, what’s next for Kuwait’s opposition?
Courtney Freer, Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy, 8 December 2016

Aftermath

Following the elections, a new Speaker of the National Assembly was elected on 11 December.

Marzouq Al-Ghanim Marzouq Ali Mohammed Al-Ghanim ( ar, مرزوق علي محمد ثنيان الغانم, Marzūq ʿAlī Muḥammad Ṯunayān al-Ghānim, born 3 November 1968, Abdullah Al-Salem, Kuwait) is a former speaker of the Kuwaiti National Assembly, re ...

was elected with 48 votes, defeating

Abdullah Al-Roumi His Excellency Abdullah al-Roumi was Deputy Prime Minister of the State of Kuwait, Minister of Justice and Supreme Attorney General. Kuwait has never appointed a Deputy Prime Minister outside the Royal Family until April 2021 when Abdullah al-Roum ...

(9 votes) and Shueib Al-Muweizri (8 votes).

References

{{Kuwaiti elections 2016 in Kuwait

Election and referendum articles with incomplete results Elections in Kuwait November 2016 events in Asia