Qatar elections are surrounded by racist treatment, political bias and more. What is going on?

With the way the Qatari regime has been ruling the country, it comes as no shock to see news about human related atrocities coming out everyday. But things have gone beyond that as now even the election practices are being targeted by the powerful to spread racism, regional divide and more.

The elections are scheduled for October and just ahead of the administrative process, The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani has ratified an electoral law. This electoral law is directed to the first legislative elections in the country.

With the changes, anyone whose original nationality is Qatari and is 18 years of age and above shall have the right to elect members of the Shoura Council. Till there, one would assume that this is a positive development but that's not the case.

The test however is not the first three lines of the law but the issue seems to be with the latter part that states that those who have acquired Qatari nationality will not be able to be included here.

The problem is with the phrase 'originally Qatari’ and since the announcement of the new rules and candidacy requirements, this particular phrase has been trending on Twitter. People are angry over this statement saying what and how will the government form a way to prove their identification as proud Qatari’s. 

Others suggest that this is a biased move against the Al-Murrah tribe. A lot of their members will not be able to meet the required conditions and they were the ones who highlighted the disbalance of this law as it straight away violates human rights.

They protested against the law with placards stating it to be an “arbitrary law that prevents them from running for the Shoura Council elections.”

The tribe went on to explain how the people in the list, now rejected, have been a part of Qatar even before there was a government or a proper administrative structure in place. As expected, when the speculations of racism arose with regards to the government and the top figures of Qatar, the ministry of interior quickly released a statement saying that some people are using social media to spread false rumors.

Following the changes in the law, people were seen on streets to protest against the law. Here’s a video!

https://twitter.com/Cinzia_Bianco/status/1424764246399889410?s=20

The reason given by the Qatari government officials for public prosecution of seven officials who were protesting is Covid-19.

https://twitter.com/MOI_QatarEn/status/1424004977756971009?s=20

Experts were quick to point out an incident from a month ago where there were a series of meetings that the Qatari council got involved in and in one of them a video of the Emir driving an SUV without the mask surfaced on social media.

Elections will be conducted in order to elect the two-third of the Soura Council’ members which means 30 members in 45 available seats. For the remaining seats, it will the Emir who will be appointing the council member.