Oil-rich Kuwait faces reckoning as debt crisis looms

When Kuwait emerged from a monthslong coronavirus lockdown, hundreds of Kuwaitis flocked to reopened stores, the lines clogging malls, snaking through hallways and spilling onto sidewalks.

But unlike much of the world, where long lines formed for donated food, Kuwaitis were waiting to buy Cartier jewelry.

The jewelry-store rush by Kuwait’s long-coddled citizens is a symptom of a looming disaster. Kuwait, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, is facing a debt crisis. The pandemic has sent the price of oil crashing to all-time lows and pushed the petrostate toward a reckoning with its longtime largesse, just as a parliamentary election approaches in December.