Qatar’s first legislative polls in 2013

DOHA: Qatar, which has actively backed Arab Spring pro-democracy movements, plans to hold the first elections to its own advisory legislative council in the second half of 2013, its emir said on Tuesday.

The election will be the first to the Shura Council, 30 of whose 45 members will be elected and the others appointed by the emir under a constitution approved in 2003. All the body’s current members are appointed.

“We have decided that the Shura (Advisory) Council elections would be held in the second half of 2013,” Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani said in a speech to the body, the state news agency QNA reported.

“We know that all these steps are necessary to build the modern state of Qatar and the Qatari citizen who is capable of dealing with the challenges of the time and building the country. We are confident that you would be capable of shouldering the responsibility.”

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2011.