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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
The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment over the announcement by Qatar, home to
the massive Al-Udeid Air Base hosting the forward headquarters of the U.S. military's Central Command.

Governance by consensus is something Gulf rulers attempt to maintain even today even as some sit atop vast
sums of oil and gas wealth that have transformed their countries.

Sheikh Tamim alluded to that in his speech Tuesday, maintaining that “the Shura Council is not a representative
parliament in a democratic system.”

“In Qatar, the people and the government have a direct civic relationship, and there are recognized norms and
mechanisms for direct communication between the people and the governance,” he said.

But it's not just Qatar rolling back on its experiment in representational government. In May, the ruler of oil-rich
Kuwait dissolved his country's parliament for as much as four years. While the Kuwaiti parliament had
struggled, it represented the Gulf Arab state's most free-wheeling legislative body and could challenge the
country's rulers.

Over a decade on from the 2011 Arab Spring protests, “we’ve seen this kind of retreat coming for some time,”
said Kristin Smith Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

“It's important to recognize there has been a debate on this and there was a popular push from below for more
representation and accountability,” Diwan said. “But it seems like that moment has passed.”

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