Predictions range from the hope that through new elections Kuwait might overcome its political stalemate, to the doubt that the elections will significantly alter the status quo.

Ambassador Edward W. Gnehm Jr., the Kuwait professor of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Affairs at George Washington University's Elliot School, offered his analysis.

"The odds this election will provide a solution is less than 50 percent," he said, but in spite of this, the election will affirm Kuwait's commitment to the democratic process.

In Kuwait, the political stalemate between parliament and the executive has paralyzed political discourse. Many Kuwaitis see the parliament as the stumbling block.

"They're fed up with parliament," Gnehm said. The members focus on inane issues and protect sectional interests while important political issues such as oil sector reform and taxation reform are left unaddressed.

One distraught Kuwaiti had told Gnehm: "We've become the Italians of the Gulf."

New parliamentary elections to be held on May 17 are expected to bring the same stalemate between the executive and parliament.

Under Kuwait's new election laws passed in 2006, Kuwait's 25 electoral constituencies were reduced to five. Each will elect 10 members to parliament with voters allowed a maximum of four votes in each constituency. Thus, even if a party has a strong majority in a constituency, it may only win four members to parliament.

In all five constituencies, tribal interests and Islamic groups are expected to retain their strong influences in parliament. Tribal influences control most of the 20 seats in the Fourth and Fifth Constituencies.

To lessen the influence of tribal elements in the elections, government officials have cracked down on illegal informal tribal primaries held by the tribes to consolidate their votes. The government has banned print stories or commercials announcing informal primaries.

Despite these efforts, Gnehm, a former U.S. ambassador to Kuwait, predicted that tribal elements will continue to hold disproportionate influence in the parliament.

Kuwaiti women won the right to vote in 2005, but no women candidate won a seat in the 2006 elections. Gnehm predicted that in the Third Constituency, Kuwaitis have the best chance of electing a female candidate.

One of the powers the Kuwaiti constitution gives to its parliament is the ability to question ministers and to call for a no-confidence vote against them. Technically, since 1962, no minister has been removed by a no-confidence vote, but several have resigned just before the vote could be carried out.

Kuwait's government resigned in early March in reaction to a pending no-confidence vote against the Health Minister and acting Information Minister Sheikh Ahmad. A member of the ruling family of Kuwait, Ahmad faced parliamentary charges of financial and bureaucratic mismanagement in the Health Ministry.

The resignation of the entire government came as a surprise to the emir, Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah. The cabinet cited the difficulties of working with the parliament as the main reason for the resignations. Following the resignation, the emir dissolved parliament on March 19 and called for new parliamentary elections to be held on May 17.

All this grumbling, Gnehm said, should not be interpreted by outsiders as a lack of Kuwaiti commitment toward participatory, parliamentary institutions.

"Kuwaitis love to complain," Gnehm said."It's like their soccer." However, it should not be overlooked, he said, that Kuwaitis view their government as an "alive democratic system.… They think they're a role model for the rest of the Gulf.