In Kuwait, a push to fix a broken system

Kuwaiti women attending a parliament session at the National Assembly in Kuwait City. — AFP

INSIDE Kuwait’s national assembly, 41-year-old lawmaker Dawood Marafie is a fresh face, determined to live up to the hopes of a younger generation exhausted by perpetual political turmoil in the Gulf state.

He is among 12 newcomers to the legislature, most of them young reformists, following the election in June – the seventh in just over a decade – in which the opposition reaped the biggest spoils.