Page 54 - MFNCA PR REPORT - OCTOBER 2024

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Tuesday called the elections "an experiment"
that was reviewed and led the government to propose the constitutional amendments.
"The Shura Council is not a representative parliament in a democratic system, and its
status and powers will not be affected whether its members are chosen by election or
appointment," Sheikh Tamim said in his annual speech to open the council's session.

The council will review the draft amendments and put them to a referendum, Sheikh
Tamim said.
The referendum results will be binding, a Qatari official told Reuters.
Qatar's first legislative election was approved in a 2003 constitutional referendum, but
did not take place until 2021.
Members of the Al Murrah tribe, one of the Gulf's largest Bedouin groups with roots
tracing back to eastern Saudi Arabia, protested the electoral law that bars Qataris
whose family was not present in Qatar before 1930 from voting.
Sheikh Tamim on Tuesday said that Qatar sought to avoid the tensions between
families and tribes that the electoral process had sparked.
The Shura Council has legislative authority and approves general state policies and the
budget, but has no say in the setting of defence, security, economic and investment
policy for the small but wealthy gas producer, which bans political parties. In Tuesday's
speech, Sheikh Tamim also said Israel deliberately chose to expand what he called its
"aggression" to implement pre-planned schemes in the West Bank and Lebanon.
Israel had done so "because it sees that the scope for that is available", he said.
Qatar, along with Egypt and the US, has been seeking to mediate a ceasefire in the
conflict in Gaza.

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/world/mena/qatar-to-hold-referendum-on-measure-to-abandon-
legislative-elections-amir-says