Qatar to hold referendum on measure to abandon legislative elections, Emir says

By Andrew Mills

DOHA (Reuters) -Qatar will hold a rare referendum for citizens to vote on a set of constitutional amendments, including a proposal that would abandon an effort to introduce elections, the Gulf Arab state's emir said on Tuesday.

Qatar held its first ever elections in 2021 to choose two-thirds of the members of the advisory Shura Council. The elections sparked rare tribal tensions in Qatar after some members of a main Bedouin tribe found themselves ineligible to vote in the poll.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Tuesday called the elections "an experiment" that was reviewed and led the government to propose the constitutional amendments.

"The Shura Council is not a representative parliament in a democratic system, and its status and powers will not be affected whether its members are chosen by election or appointment" Sheikh Tamim said in his annual speech to open the council's session.

The council will review the draft amendments and put them to a referendum, Sheikh Tamim said.

The referendum results will be binding, a Qatari official told Reuters.

Qatar's first legislative election was approved in a 2003 constitutional referendum, but did not take place until 2021.

Members of the Al Murrah tribe, one of the Gulf's largest Bedouin groups with roots tracing back to eastern Saudi Arabia, protested the electoral law that bars Qataris whose family was not present in Qatar before 1930 from voting.

Sheikh Tamim on Tuesday said that Qatar sought to avoid the tensions between families and tribes that the electoral process had sparked.

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.

In Tuesday's speech Sheikh Tamim also said Israel deliberately chose to expand what he called its "aggression" to implement pre-planned schemes in the West Bank and Lebanon.

Israel had done so "because it sees that the scope for that is available," he said.

Qatar, along with Egypt and the U.S., has been seeking to mediate a ceasefire in the conflict in Gaza.

(Reporting by Andrew Mills, Clauda Tanios and Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Sharon Singleton)