Ballots open in Qatar for the first elections in the history of the Gulf kingdom. Citizens are called to elect 30 of the 45 members of Parliament without the presence of political parties which are prohibited by law. In the Majlis al-Shura the remaining 15 seats are instead appointed by the Emir Tamim ben Hamad Al-Thani.
The approximately 2.5 million inhabitants of the country are largely foreigners and do not enjoy the right to vote while even among the 330,000 Qatari whose family has held citizenship since at least 1930, the vote is reserved only for those with pure local tribal descent: plus or minus 260,000, just over 10% of the population.
There are 284 candidates in the running and of these only 28 are women. All names have been approved by the Interior Ministry.
Polling stations remain open until 6pm local time.
(Unioneonline / ss)
