Daily Times

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.