The National Assembly was the
legislature in Kuwait, established in 1963. Its predecessor, the 1938 National Assembly, was formally dissolved in 1939 after "one member, Sulaiman al-Adasani, in possession of a letter, signed by other Assembly members, addressed to Iraq's
King Ghazi, requesting Kuwait's immediate incorporation into
Iraq." This demand came after the merchant members of the Assembly attempted to extract oil money from
Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, a suggestion refused by him and upon which he instigated a crackdown which arrested the Assembly members in 1939. The National Assembly normally consisted of 65 members; this total included 50 elected deputies as well as 15 cabinet members directly appointed by the Emir. Fifty deputies were elected by one non-transferable vote to serve four-year terms. Members of the cabinet also sat in the parliament as deputies. The constitution limited the size of the cabinet to 16. The cabinet ministers had the same rights as the elected MPs, with the following two exceptions: they did not participate in the work of committees, and they could not vote when an interpolation leads to a no-confidence vote against one of the cabinet members. As per Article 107 of the
Kuwait constitution, the assembly could be dissolved by the Emir by decree, giving the reasons for the dissolution. However, it could not be dissolved again on the same grounds, and elections for the new assembly must be held within a period not exceeding two months from the date of the dissolution. In contrast to parliaments in other Gulf kingdoms, the assembly had considerably more formal and informal power. The assembly was previously suspended from 1976–1981 and 1986–1991.
Gender balance Kuwaiti women gained the
right to vote in 2005. Women first won seats in the National Assembly in the
2009 election, in which four women,
Aseel al-Awadhi,
Rola Dashti,
Massouma al-Mubarak and
Salwa al-Jassar, were elected. ==Building==