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10/16/24, 11:11 AM Qatar to hold referendum on measure to abandon legislative elections, Emir says | Reuters
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.
00:27 US demands more aid for Ga…
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 U.S., has been seeking to mediate a ceasefire in the conflict in Gaza.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-emir-says-israel-chose-expand-aggression-west-bank-lebanon-2024-10-15/ 3/4
