Call for quotas as Qatar holds rare vote

Doha 

Qataris will have a rare chance to vote today as they choose candidates to sit on the country's only directly elected body, with calls growing to ensure more women are selected.

Only one woman was elected onto the 29-seat municipal council at the last vote and out of 118 candidates this time, only five are female, one fewer than the number who stood in the first such election 16 years ago.

Although the electorate of more than 23,000 people is split almost equally between men and women, the gender imbalance between the candidates is striking.

"It would be very disappointing if again only one female candidate won this time," said one of the hopefuls, Amal Issa al-Mohannadi.

Today’s vote is only the fifth time there have been direct elections in Qatar, with elections to the council taking place every four years, beginning in 1999.

Election fever is hardly sweeping the country, but in the streets of the capital Doha the candidates' posters are hung on hundreds of lampposts, alongside promises to improve services in their respective constituencies. 

Wearing a niqab covering her face, Mohannadi added: "I am running for the second time despite all the challenges."

Mohannadi, a computer engineer who is studying for a PhD in public administration, said she is motivated this time because at the last vote she outpolled more than seven male rivals, but lost out to an eighth.

"I came second," she said. "If it were not for a tribal meeting in which they decided to vote for the male candidate, I would have been the winner. Without a quota for women, the challenge is huge."

Qatar, she added, is "a conservative society still inclined to vote in favour of the candidate son of the tribe and believes a male candidate is best able to deliver a voice, no matter if he is efficient or not".