DOHA: Election to the fifth term of the Central Municipal Council (CMC) will be held on May 13, a Wednesday, for which some 130 Qatari men and five women have tentatively filed nominations.
The final list of contestants will be issued early next month. Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani issued a Decree yesterday (No. 17 of 2015) declaring May 13 as the election day for the next term of the CMC, reports QNA.
The Decree invites citizens who have the right to vote and whose names figure on the voter list, to exercise their franchise in the May 13 poll.
The Decree has already come into effect and is to be published in the official gazette, QNA said.
Meanwhile, details available suggest that this is the second time five women are on the tentative list of nominees for the CMC election. Some 227 candidates, among them six women, were in the fray for the maiden CMC election in early 1999.
This time, the five tentative women nominees include the lone sitting female member of the House, Sheikha Al Jefairi, from Constituency Number 8 (Old Airport).
And the four other women are from four different constituencies (Numbers 9, 10, 15 and 17).
The maximum number of tentative nominees is from two constituencies (Number 11 and 13) at 25 each.
The process of filing of nominations ended yesterday and the supervisory committee for the next CMC election at the Interior Ministry is expected to finalise the list early in April.
Many sitting members of the CMC are seeking re-election and among them are Jassem Al Malki, vice-chairman, and Mubarak Fraish.
Al Malki told this newspaper that a major challenge facing him and several other candidates is that they are not sure of the boundaries of their respective constituencies after they have been re-demarcated.
“So I don’t know which areas to canvass in and which areas to not,” said Al Malki. “There is confusion.” He said until Tuesday he had just one rival and that was a man. He said this time all constituencies have been given numbers and they have no names. “My constituency is, for instance, number 1.”
Fraish, sitting member from Al Gharrafa, said he has three rivals and among them is a woman.
There were 84 candidates in the 2003 CMC election and one of them was a woman.
In the 2007 election, there were 116 candidates, three of them women. While in the last poll, thee were 101 contestants, four of them female. The Peninsula
DOHA: At least one sitting CMC member who is aspiring to seek re-election rues restrictions on the use of colourful posters, billboards and the witty political graffiti and slogan writing in canvassing for election to the public representative body.
“All we are permitted to do in the name of canvassing is door-to-door campaigning,” said Mubarak Fraish, a sitting member of the CMC from Constituency Number 15 (Al Gharrafa).
“We are not allowed to use posters and billboards. If we were, that would help attract more people to register as voters for the CMC elections,” Fraish told this newspaper yesterday.
He said there was confusion after the 29 constituencies of the CMC were re-demarcated for the next CMC election due to changing demography as no one knew the boundaries.
“At least the election panel should put signs and posters marking the beginnings and end of the re-demarcated constituencies,” he said.
The Peninsula
