Some Kuwaitis say autocrats in neighboring countries have an advantage. Parliamentary candidates attend a rally.

By ROBERT F. WORTH

KUWAIT - In a vast, high-ceilinged tent, Ali al- Rashed sounded an anguished note as he delivered the first speech of his campaign for Parliament.
“Kuwait used to be No. 1 in the economy, in politics, in sports, in culture, in everything,” he said, his voice floating out in the warm evening air to hundreds of potential voters seated on white damask- lined chairs. “What happened?”
It is a question many people were asking as this tiny, oil-rich nation of 2.6 million people approached its latest round of elections. And the unlikely answer being whispered around, both here and in neighboring countries on the Persian Gulf: too much democracy.
In a region where autocracy is the rule, Kuwait is a remarkable exception, with a powerful and truculent elected Parliament that sets the emir’s salary and is the nation’s sole source of legislation. Women gained the right to vote and run for office two years ago, and a popular movement won further electoral changes.
Despite those gains, Kuwait has been overshadowed by its dynamic neighbors - Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar - where economies are booming under absolute monarchies. Efforts to overhaul Kuwait’s welfare state have stalled in its divided Parliament, and scandals led the emir to dissolve the chamber in April for the second time in less than two years, forcing new elections.
All this has left many Kuwaitis disenchanted with their 50-member elected legislature. The collapse of the Bush administration’s efforts to promote democracy in the region and the continuing chaos in Iraq have also contributed to a popular suspicion that democracy itself is one Western import that has not worked.
“People say democracy is just slowing us down, and that we’d be better off if we were more like Dubai,” said Waleed al-Sager, 24, who is advising his father’s campaign for Parliament.
Like many Kuwaitis, Mr. Sager quickly said he disagreed with that view. But in the days before parliamentary elections that were held on Saturday, with near-constant coverage in a dozen new newspapers and on satellite television stations, candidates refer again and again to a “halat ihbaat” - state of frustration. Mr. Sager’s father, Mohammed al-Sager, a longtime member of Parliament, delivered his own opening campaign speech shortly after Mr. Rashed recently, and spent much of it reminding his listeners of the need for an elected assembly.
“Some people have called for a permanent dissolution of Parliament,” he said, his face telecast on an enormous screen to a thick overflow crowd outside the tent. “But everywhere in the world - in Africa, in Palestine, in the old Soviet Union - people have turned to elections to solve their problems, not away from them. Whatever problems we have in our Parliament, we must remember that it is much better than no Parliament at all.”
The current political malaise is especially striking because most Kuwaitis take pride in their nation’s relatively democratic traditions. The ruling Sabah family acquired its position not through conquest, but with an agreement among the coastal traders of the region in the mid-18th century. After Kuwait gained independence from the British in 1961, the emir approved a written Constitution that sharply limited his power in relation to Parliament.
“This ruling family is different from any other ruling family in the region,” said Ghanim al-Najjar, a newspaper columnist and professor of political science at Kuwait University. “They are part of the political process, not on top of it.”
In some ways, Kuwait is the most democratic country in the Arab world, aside from Lebanon. There are Arab republics - in Yemen, Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Iraq and Tunisia - but despite their democratic forms, those countries have generally been more autocratic and repressive than the region’s monarchies.
In Kuwait, tensions between the majority Sunnis and minority Shiites are minimal. Kuwaitis of all backgrounds mix socially at diwaniyas, the traditional evening gatherings where political and social gossip is shared over tea and coffee. And while there have been setbacks - the royal family suspended Parliament in the late 1970s and again in the late 1980s - Kuwait has grown steadily more democratic.
Two years ago, popular pressure forced a change in the electoral districting law, making it harder to buy votes. Women gained the right to vote and run in elections (though none have won seats). In mid-April, Kuwaiti democrats won yet another battle after the government tried to pass a law restricting public gatherings. There were popular demonstrations against the proposal, and the government backed down.
But those civic freedoms have come alongside signs of real frustration. Despite the world’s fifth largest oil reserves, many Kuwaitis are upset with the absence of business and investment opportunity, at least as compared with other countries nearby.
The notion that democracy is somehow holding Kuwait back is common.
“It’s true, the friction in our politics delays things,” said Kamel Harami, an oil analyst. “The sheik of Abu Dhabi can say, ‘Go build this,’ and it’s done. He doesn’t have me, the press, the TV stations, the Parliament, getting in his way. But what people need to understand is that democracy isn’t the problem; it’s that democracy isn’t being used correctly.”
Some Kuwaitis say the current emir, Sheik Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, has deliberately fostered the idea that Parliament is the root of the country’s problems. When he called for new elections in March, the emir pointedly urged Kuwaitis to elect a Parliament that would help develop the country.
There is an authoritarian wing of the royal family that has long wanted to curtail Parliament’s powers .
Still, as the candidates trooped from one diwaniya to the next in search of votes, any sort of retreat from democratic values seemed unlikely. “There are people who want to say, Look at democracy, look at what it causes,’ said Nawaf al-Mutairi, a business student. “But we know democracy is our last hope. The problem is just that democracy is incremental.”