Qatar:women fail to break through in first legislative elections

In Qatar, results of the first legislative council election have been announced,with none of the 26 female candidates winning at the polls. Qatari citizens voted on Saturday in the Gulf Arab state’s first legislative elections for two-thirds of the advisory Shura Council, a process that has stirred domestic debate about electoral inclusion and citizenship.

The Shura Council has legislative authority and approves general state policies and the budget but has no say in the setting of defence, security, economic and investment policy for the small but wealthy gas producer, which bans political parties. Turnout for the election of 30 members of the 45-seat body was 63.5 percent, the interior ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The emir will continue to appoint the remaining 15 Council members.

Results showed none of the women who were part of the polls was elected, disappointing candidates who had wanted to lend a voice for women and other Qataris in the country’s political process. “To have all men is not the vision of Qatar,” said Aisha Hamam al-Jasim, 59, a nursing manager who ran in the capital Doha’s Markhiya district. She urged Qatari women to start “voicing what they believe in” and vote for strong women candidates in the future. Several female candidates had been seeking to improve the integration into Qatari society of children of Qatari mothers married to foreigners who, like in other Gulf states, cannot pass their Qatari nationality to their children.

Most of Qatar's 2.5 million residents are foreigners, ineligible to vote.Candidates stood in electoral divisions linked to where their family or tribe was based in the 1930s, using data compiled by the then-British authorities. Some members of the sizeable Al-Murrah tribe were among those excluded from the electoral process, sparking a fierce debate online and isolated protests.