Women voters voiced disappointment on Sunday after none were elected in Qatar's first legislative polls.
Doha – Women voters voiced disappointment Sunday after none were elected in Qatar's first legislative polls with all eyes on whether the emir will use his powers to appoint 15 lawmakers to boost representation.
Of the 284 hopefuls who went into the race for the 30 available council seats, just 28 were women although the final proportion after a number of eleventh-hour candidate withdrawals has not been published.As well as counting no women amongst their number, the 30 victorious candidates were older men mostly from prominent families, many of whom had backgrounds in business or government.
If as expected by many analysts the emir does directly appoint women to improve the gender balance it would follow what happened in Bahrain's legislative election. Women also hold prominent roles in the World Cup organising committee as well as philanthropy and the arts, medicine, law and business.