Page 68 - MFNCA PR REPORT - OCTOBER 2024

10/16/24, 11:11 AM Qatar's ruler says his nation will vote on abandoning legislative elections after just one poll
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.

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.

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