Qatar votes in referendum on scrapping legislative elections

Qataris voted in a snap poll on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, to decide whether to end their limited voting for legislative seats in Doha, Qatar. , Photo Credit: AP

A referendum to cancel short-term legislative elections in Qatar has passed with more than 90% of the vote, officials said on Wednesday (November 6, 2024), ending a crackdown on democracy in the Gulf monarchy.

The Interior Ministry said the vote approved several constitutional amendments with 90.6% of valid ballots cast by Qatari citizens.

“By participating in the referendum and voting in favor of the constitutional amendments, Qataris… have celebrated the values ​​of unity and justice,” Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani posted on Twitter.

An interior ministry statement said 84 percent of eligible voters out of about 380,000 Qataris – a minority in the gas-rich peninsula – took part in Tuesday’s referendum.

The main proposal was to end elections for 30 of the 45 seats on the Shura Council, an advisory body with limited powers, which were held for the first and only time in 2021.

The elections, held a year before Qatar hosted the Football World Cup under intense international scrutiny, had fueled division because only descendants of Qataris who were citizens in 1930 were eligible to vote and contest elections, and constituencies were divided into tribal areas. Was mapped on the basis.

Some members of the large al-Murrah tribe were among those excluded from the electoral process, leading to heated debate online at the time and sporadic protests.

Other changes approved in Tuesday’s referendum included allowing all Qataris, including naturalized citizens, to hold ministerial posts, a right previously reserved for Qatari-born citizens.

Sheikh Tamim will now resume appointing all members of the Shura Council, which can propose legislation, approve the budget and recall ministers – subject to the emir’s veto.

As well as one-off legislative elections, municipal elections have also been held in Qatar every four years since 1999.