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10/16/24, 11:11 AM Qatar's ruler says his nation will vote on abandoning legislative elections after just one poll - ABC News
“We are all one family in Qatar,” Sheikh Tamim said, according to a transcript published by the state-run Qatar
News Agency. “The contest between candidates for membership in the Shura Council took place within families
and tribes, and there are different views regarding the repercussions of such competition on our norms,
traditions, as well as the conventional social institutions and their cohesion.”

The emir added: “The contest assumes an identity-based character that we are not equipped to handle, with
potential complications over time that we would rather avoid.”

The country’s electoral law distinguishes between born and naturalized Qatari citizens and bars the latter from
electoral participation. Human Rights Watch described the system as “discriminatory,” excluding thousands of
Qataris from running or voting. The disqualifications have sparked minor tribal protests that led to several
arrests.

Qatar first introduced plans for the legislative elections in its 2003 constitution, but authorities repeatedly
postponed the vote. The country finally held the vote to elect two-thirds of the Shura Council in October 2021,
just after the end of a boycott of Qatar by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that tore
the Gulf Arab states apart.

The vote also came about a year ahead of Qatar hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, an event that drew intense
scrutiny from the West to both Doha's treatment of foreign laborers and its system of governance. Qatar remains
an important nation to the West as it hosted the Taliban and assisted in the chaotic 2021 NATO withdrawal from
Afghanistan and as a mediator as the Israel-Hamas war rages in the Gaza Strip and has expanded to Lebanon.

Qatar, like other Gulf Arab states, is ruled by a hereditary leader with ultimate say in how the country is
governed. Before the oil industry roared into the Gulf and upended hundreds of years of governance, rulers led
by consensus among their people.

The U.S. after the Cold War began a push for democracy in the Mideast, while carefully balancing its
relationships with longtime client states it cultivated in its competition with the Soviet Union and its support of
Israel. That push strengthened under then-President George W. Bush following the 9/11 attacks, which saw Gulf
Arab states make tentative moves toward some type of representation.

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