Kuwait: Cabinet resigned after standoff with parliament
Kuwait was plunged into a new crisis on Tuesday after the cabinet resigned over a standoff with parliament, in a move which could lead to early elections. "The Kuwaiti cabinet submitted its resignation to the emir just a while ago," MP Nasser al-Sane was quoted as saying by AFP. Kuwaiti ministers -- led by Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed al-Ahmad al-Sabah -- had walked out of parliament earlier on Tuesday as the house was to set a date to question the premier.
Following its walkout from parliament, the government went into an emergency meeting, parliamentary sources said.
Under Kuwaiti law, if Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah accepts the resignation he can either form a new cabinet or dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections.
Several MPs said the emir was due to issue a decree later on Tuesday to dissolve parliament, with some expecting both the constitution and parliament to be suspended.
Three Islamist MPs had last week called for the premier to be grilled, accusing Sheikh Nasser, a nephew of the emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, of allowing a prominent Iranian Shiite cleric to enter Kuwait despite a legal ban. They have also accused him of failing to "perform his constitutional duties... and that it was time that Kuwait had a premier capable of running the state and achieving the wishes of the people."