close
close

first Drop

Com TW NOw News 2024

    • Qatar to vote on canceling elections ‘in the name of democracy and social
    news

    Qatar to vote on canceling elections ‘in the name of democracy and social

    Vaseline Posted on

    While the eyes of the world are focused on the fateful US election, citizens of Qatar will also head to the polls today to vote on a referendum that will include a series of constitutional reforms, the most notable of which is the cancellation of the country’s elections is. , claimed by the Emir himself.

    According to the new proposal, Article 77 of the Qatari Constitution, which currently reads: “The Shura Council (elected advisory council) shall consist of 45 members, 30 of whom shall be elected by direct secret universal suffrage, and the emir will appoint the other. 15 members” will be changed to: “The Shura Council shall consist of not less than 45 members, and the appointment of the members shall be promulgated by an Emiri decree.”

    Qatar’s consultative Shura Council has essentially no power over the emir and his elected government, but with the implementation of the new reforms, even the weak representative undertaking offered to Qatari citizens so far will be annulled. Furthermore, in a country of approximately 3 million inhabitants, only about 310,000 (12%) are considered citizens with voting rights.

    This is not the first time that anti-democratic measures have been taken in Qatar. In 2021, the Qatari regime passed a controversial election law that effectively denied the right of the entire Aal Murrah clan to participate in the elections. This led to a short-lived and very rare wave of protest from members of the clan, which in turn led to the arrest of seven clan activists and the suppression of the movement.

    Doha, Qatar. (credit: COURTESY)

    ‘Elections are the opposite of social cohesion’

    Ariel Admoni, Qatar researcher and PhD candidate at Bar-Ilan University, spoke The Jerusalem Post about these events in the small Gulf country.

    “The Qataris are interested in maintaining their uniqueness in the Gulf, and also want to sell themselves to the West in a positive way,” Admoni explains. “So when the emir’s father relinquished power in 2013 and was replaced by his son, the official marketing strategy continued to insist that ‘in Qatar we voluntarily relinquish our power’, signaling criticism of other countries around them .”

    On the issue of the current referendum, Admoni explained: “Many of the defenders who supported the current motion in Qatar justified the cancellation of the elections by putting forward the pretext of ‘social cohesion’, which in turn means that they argue that elections are the opposite of that, especially given the outcome of the last election.”

    Admoni reminds us that the last elections for the consultative Shura Council, which has no substantive powers, took place in 2021. “Those who were elected were seen as very conservative, and no women were elected at all in the popular vote, and the emir had to use his allocated seats to allow women to serve on the council. This conservative trend was the main reason for postponing the elections to 2021, even though the emir wanted to hold them earlier.”

    According to Admoni, Qatar is trying to market these constitutional reforms as democratic in themselves. “They turned it into a festive day, with extensive media coverage of officials voting, offering a day off in some cases, shortening the school day, interviewing many citizens who spoke in favor of the emir’s plan , and even about its plan. as a historic day when ‘Qatar will choose its future.’ In classic Qatari fashion, they are paving a non-democratic path and marketing it as the epitome of democracy.”



    Vaseline
    View all posts

    You Might Also Like