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10/16/24, 11:11 AM Qatar to vote on abandoning legislative elections | AP News
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.

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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.

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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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