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Qatar has introduced the outcomes of its first legislative elections, marking a restricted broadening of political participation because the gas-rich Gulf state prepares to host the Fifa World Cup subsequent yr.
Polls had been held on the weekend for two-thirds of the emirate’s consultative 45-member Shura Council. The inside ministry stated on Sunday that turnout had reached 63.5 per cent, including: “These elections will strengthen the rule of legislation and establishments of the nation.”
Not one of the 28 girls amongst 284 candidates was elected.
The council, which advises on state insurance policies and approves the price range, consists of 30 elected representatives, with the rest appointed by the emir.
The polls had been the most recent in a collection of reforms in search of to modernise the state and burnish its world picture forward of the World Cup. Different measures embrace laws to enhance much-criticised working conditions for labourers constructing the infrastructure for the event and a drive towards official corruption.
The elections, first scheduled for 2013, had been delayed when the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, acceded to the throne after his father’s abdication.
Sheikh Tamim instantly needed to take care of more and more fractious relations with highly effective Gulf neighbours, who accused Qatar of supporting terrorism. The tensions culminated within the 2017 Saudi-led blockade of the nation, which ended earlier this yr.
Dania Thafer, a professor at Georgetown College within the US, described the election winners as “males from a broad spectrum of illustration of tribes/households”, together with former authorities officers and enterprise elites. “As traditional within the [Gulf Co-operation Council], patriarchy wins on the poll and ladies don’t win deserved seats,” she stated on Twitter. “It’s essential that quotas be instituted.”
Elham Fakhro, a visiting scholar on the UK’s College of Exeter, stated poor electoral outcomes for feminine candidates had been widespread throughout the area. In Kuwait, probably the most democratic of the Gulf states, the place the parliament has powers to carry officers to account, no girls had been elected within the final spherical of elections in 2020.
“That is shocking because it goes towards one other pattern that we do see within the Gulf, which is a rising illustration of girls in public life, in authorities positions and throughout the personal sector,” she stated.
The emir might use his authority to nominate girls to the consultative physique, stated Fakhro.
Past gender illustration, the election marketing campaign uncovered different fissures in Qatari society, notably considerations over a two-tier citizenship system.
Qatar’s election legislation of July gave the suitable to “native” Qataris to face for election and vote however barred “naturalised” residents whose households weren’t within the nation earlier than 1930.
The transfer sparked protests in August led by these disenfranchised below the legislation, together with members of the big Al Murrah tribe, which has a historical past of strained relations with the state.
The federal government stated there had been a small variety of arrests forward of the vote for “incitement of hate speech” and “abusive on-line behaviour in direction of voters”, however insisted that it inspired “public debate”.
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