DOHA: Qatar’s Emir Shaikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani said on Tuesday that a long delayed vote for the country’s policy reviewing chamber will be held in October 2021, marking the Gulf emirate’s first national election.
The current Shura Council advises the Emir on draft laws but does not create its own legislation and can be overruled by a simple decree. October’s vote would be Qatar’s first national election.
Qataris have previously been able to cast ballots on constitutional reforms and in elections to a nationwide municipal council.
“The Shura Council elections will be held in October of next year to strengthen the traditions of the Qatari shura, with wider participation by citizens’’, the Emir said in a speech to open the 49th session of the council.
Elections to the council, required under the country’s 2004 constitution, have been postponed repeatedly and the body’s members have instead been directly appointed by the Emir.
“We are taking an important step in strengthening the Qatari consultative traditions and developing the legislative process with the participation of a wider range of citizens’’, Emir Shaikh Tamim said.
“We have our solid system rooted in the structure of our society and... it is not a multi-party system, but rather an emirate system based on established traditions of fair and rational governance.” — AFP
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