Qatar votes in referendum on scrapping legislative polls

Qataris went to the polls on Tuesday in a referendum on ending a brief and limited experiment with legislative elections in the wealthy monarchy.

Voters among the gas-rich peninsula's roughly 380,000 Qatari nationals cast their ballots on constitutional changes that would scrap the legislative council polls.

In 2021, a year before Qatar held the football World Cup under intense international scrutiny, the Gulf state organised its first elections for 30 of 45 seats in the Shura Council, an advisory body with limited powers.

However, the polls prompted division as only certain Qataris were eligible to vote. Last October, Qatar's emir called them an "experiment" and proposed the constitutional changes.

The Qatari establishment appeared confident of the result of Tuesday's referendum, the first in more than 20 years, which coincides with US presidential elections on the same day.

"I believe that it will not be a majority vote, but it may even reach a unanimous vote on a constitutional amendment," Saud bin Khalid Al-Thani, a prominent member of the ruling family, told journalists before voting.

"Every country may have its own style that suits it, its personality, and its citizens. We are a country, praise be to God, united with our leadership, united with our government," he added.

Qatar has also held municipal council elections every four years since 1999.

Under the amendments, the Shura Council would again be wholly appointed by the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, who keeps a tight grip on power.

The Shura is allowed to propose legislation, approve the budget and recall ministers. But the emir, all-powerful in one of the world's largest exporters of liquefied natural gas, wields a veto.

At an election centre next to Ahmad bin Ali Stadium in suburban Doha, hundreds of male voters dressed in carefully pressed white thobes, Qatar's national dress, arrived to vote in the first hours after polls opened.

Golf carts ferried some voters to and from their cars, and VIPs were dropped off in SUVs and Lamborghinis. An adjoining hall for female voters was more sparsely attended.

The 2021 polls stoked division as only descendants of Qataris who were citizens in 1930 were eligible to vote and run, while constituencies were mapped out along tribal lines.

Some members of the sizeable Al-Murrah tribe were among those excluded from the electoral process, sparking a fierce debate online and sporadic protests at the time.

Among the changes on the current ballot is a move to allow all Qataris, including naturalised citizens, to hold ministerial office, a right previously reserved for Qatari-born nationals.

Danyel Reiche, a Qatar-based politics expert, told AFP during the 2021 poll "some Qataris were not eligible to vote and had been upset or angry".

"Sometimes in the same families some people could vote, others not," said the academic, who works at Georgetown University Qatar.

"By not holding elections and revising specifications of the citizenship law this conflict is avoided."

The Gas-rich emirate's constitution -- its first since independence from Britain in 1971 -- came into effect in 2005, introducing democratic reforms that resulted in the 2021 elections.

Baraa Shiban, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, said in the early 2000s Qatar had been "more committed towards more representation" describing the moves in the current referendum as a "rollback".

But, he added, "having dissatisfaction in a small country like Qatar is big".

The UK-based expert explained there had been a "silent discussion" in Middle East in the 2000s over "stability versus democracy", which had reached a crescendo in the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

"Those two narratives have been battling for more than a decade... right now, the narrative of having more stability is winning but I think this discussion will continue," Shiban added.