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The Formation of the Federation

           Once again il looked as though Qatar’s well-meaning zeal only
         alienated the delegates from the less well prepared member states
         and from Bahrain; the latter by virtue of its long history of overseas
         trade and formal education claimed that it should be the federation’s
         natural “think lank”. Being host to the meeting, the Government of
         Qatar presented a 20-item agenda designed to compel the Supreme
         Council of Rulers to discuss steps which would enable the federation
         to function as one body even before the adoption of the new
         constitution, which had still not been drafted. The majority of the
         other emirates rejected this agenda and one day was spent trying to
         agree on a new one. The communique issued on 14 May indicates
         the dilemma facing the federation of nine emirates. The members
         supported the idea but the majority were hesitant over putting these
         principles into effect, and the meeting adjourned without having
         decided upon a President, the names of the ministers to replace the
         Temporary Union Council,46 a Hag, a capital, or a centralised military
         command.
           One of the stumbling blocks was that Bahrain insisted that the
         members of the proposed parliament (Federal Assembly) should be
         selected on the basis of proportional representation. This was
         opposed by all the other emirates because this system would have
         given Bahrain, with its large and well-educated population, an
         overwhelming advantage.
           At this stage, preparation of the draft constitution had not
         commenced, the British withdrawal was still two years away, there
         was even a hope that the Conservatives might reverse the decision,
         therefore the majority of the delegates to the Supreme Council
         meeting seemed tacitly to agree to disagree, gaining more time to
         consult on the final shape and size of the federation. Yet most
         delegates had already become much more conversant with the
         realities of political life in a federation; and they realised that the
         spirit of the constitution had to be derived from the political
         relationships between the member States, not introduced as theories
         by outside experts. At the Supreme Council meeting in May 1969 a
         committee of the Rulers’ own advisers and legal experts was set up to
         prepare in two months the first draft of the constitution to be
         submitted to outside legal experts for comments and recommenda­
         tions.47 The Egyptian legal adviser, Dr Wahid Ra’fat, who had been
         asked a year earlier by the Government of Qatar to give a legal
         opinion, was appointed to study this draft during the month before it
         was presented to the Rulers. The expert who had been appointed in
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