IT MAY not be saying much, but Kuwait is certainly the most democratic country in the Gulf. MPs and journalists openly clash with the ruling family; freedom of speech and assembly are widely accepted. Many Kuwaitis had hoped for more liberties when the Arab spring began in early 2011. Instead, a cycle of clashes between government and opposition has been speeding up, with police using tear-gas and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators.

The roots of the crisis lie in a dispute over the electoral law, in the unwillingness of the authorities to accommodate the new-found strength of elected Islamists, and in a bigger, longer-term battle over power-sharing. The powers of Kuwait’s parliament are designed in a way that produces a recurrent stalemate. When MPs get into a serious row with the government, as routinely happens when they seek to question ministers about corruption, the 83-year-old emir has increasingly tended to resort simply to dissolving the troublesome body and calling elections. So parliament has been dissolved five times in as many years.

The last lot of elections, in February this year, returned a parliament with a 70% majority for a loose opposition coalition of diverse Islamists, tribal candidates and secular nationalists. As soon as it was elected, Kuwaitis started betting on how quickly it would be dissolved. In the event, a constitutional court ruled in June that the elections had been invalid, and said the previous parliament, conveniently more pro-government, should be restored.

Faced with angry opposition and threats of boycotts, the government agreed to schedule fresh elections for December. But the frustrated opposition would have probably won again. So the emir explained that the law would be changed: Kuwaitis would each vote for one candidate instead of the four they had previously been able to choose. Under the new plan, it would be harder for opposition groups to build a similar coalition again.

Opposition groups and youth activists were infuriated. Musallam Barrak, an ex-MP who got the highest number of votes ever gained by a single candidate earlier this year, and who hails from a well-known tribe, the Mutairi, addressed a crowd of thousands of mainly young protesters in Erada Square, in the centre of the capital, on October 21st. “We will not allow you,” he said, in language aimed directly at the emir, “to take the country into the abyss of dictatorship”. Young people were no longer afraid of police batons or jails, he said. Right on cue, the police turned up with batons, tear-gas and pellet guns. Three ex-MPs were arrested and brought to court, blindfolded and with their heads shaven, though they have since been bailed. Unauthorised gatherings of 20 or more people are now to be banned.

While the government and the opposition are both upping the ante, many Kuwaitis are alarmed, trusting neither the government to protect their political liberties nor the opposition to protect their social freedoms. In the short run the future is unclear, but the episode provides yet more evidence that the Gulf’s wealth alone is not enough to protect it from growing demand for more political rights.