Thirty-seven new candidates filed their nomination papers Tuesday, raising the total number of hopefuls for the upcoming national assembly elections on September 29 to 222 candidates. Tuesday’s candidates included two women, bringing the number of female candidates to 12. The new candidates include two members of the dissolved national assembly, Abdulkarim Al-Kandari and Yousef Al-Ghareeb. They also included three former MPs from previous assemblies.

In the meantime, veteran Shiite MP Adnan Abdulsamad said yesterday that he will not bid for re-election and his colleague former MP Ahmad Lari is running from the same first constituency. Lari called on the next government to prepare a working program that leads to political, economic and administrative reforms. MP Kandari called for change based on the principles included in the Amiri address delivered by the crown prince on June 22.

Former MP Abdullah Fahhad said the country is before a crucial historical era and called for holding to account all those who stole public funds. Fahhad said it was high time for resolving the decades-old problem of stateless people, locally known as bedoons, charging that racists have prevented resolving the humanitarian issue of thousands of bedoons. The national assembly was dissolved in July over continued political disputes between the government and opposition MPs. Snap polls have been set for September 29. Registration of candidates will continue until September 7, while withdrawal from the race will remain open until seven days before the election day./KT