Poems key part of Kuwait candidates' campaigns

Parliamentary candidates have been using poetry as part of their campaigns for the July 27 elections, being a culturally-integrated method to influence emotions of voters thus their decisions on who to vote to. Poetry is one of the social communication methods which touch upon emotion of people, which encouraged candidates to use poems their political quests. Poetry reflects cultural events of every society "and it is a literature mean and part of social communication methods and even very effective," said Sociology professor Yaqoub Al-Kandari. History, Al-Kandari told KUNA, showed how poems were successful in encouraging "fighters in the armies and how poems been always considered an effective method to convey news and to influence emotions." The candidate's good selection of words in his poems will have dramatic impacts on voters, said Al-Kandari. "Generally speaking, poetry is a very effective tool to brighten the candidate image if it is used properly," he added. Mohammad Al-Saddani, an Arabic Language teacher and news presenter, said poems were influential means to incite overwhelming support from a certain tribe or family, which would win support of many voters. "Poetry affects life in many ways in some areas because it has a large audience among tribesmen, because it is one of the arts which played a role in history of tribes," he told KUNA. Poet Athbi Sarhan Al-Enezi, meanwhile, said poetry played an important role in daily life of people not only during elections but all times. Al-Enezi, in a statement to KUNA, said a poet could influence his voters with honest and sweet words that would reach their hearts before their minds. He said some of the candidates asked poets to recite their poems during their campaigns, while others used poems as slogans. Al-Enezi said he might write a poem over "any candidate if he is fully convinced he is trusthworthy. "Poetry is feelings, it should be honest and derived from personal conviction of the poet," he added.