In Kuwait, voting is underway to elect the seventh Parliament in a decade. <br/><br/>Voting will take place at 100 polling stations set up in schools, with separate centres for men and women. <br/><br/>The results are expected after midnight as ballot papers in Kuwait are still counted manually. <br/><br/>Regardless of the outcome of the polls, a prominent member of the Al-Sabah ruling family, in power for the past 250 years, will lead the next government. <br/><br/>Members of the family also always occupy the key posts of foreign, interior and defence ministers.The snap polls see the return of opposition groups after a four-year boycott in protest at the government's amendment of the electoral law. <br/><br/>Around 30 opposition figures, out of 300 candidates, including 14 women, are running for the 50-seat Parliament. Half of the opposition candidates are Islamists. <br/><br/>The emir dissolved the last parliament after MPs called for ministers to be grilled over subsidy cuts, in a state with a traditionally generous cradle-to-grave welfare system.<br/><br/>Kuwait has a population of 4.4 million, but 70 per cent of those are foreigners and only 483,000 people are eligible to vote from among Kuwaitis who number 1.23 million.