Well-established experience enhances participation in development of CMC

The Central Municipal Council (CMC) is the first house of democracy in Qatar, and the culmination of municipal work that went through various stages and continuous development over the last three decades of the 20th century.
The municipal work was strengthened when the first municipal elections were held in 1999.
The first municipal council was established in the early 1950s.
Over the years the laws and regulations regulating the municipalities and the municipal council went through various stages of development and update, including Law No 11 of 1963 (amended by a law issued in 1972) regulating the Doha municipality and stipulating the formation of its municipal council of 19 members for a term of two years.
The establishment of a ministry responsible for municipal affairs in 1972 constituted a shift in terms of developing municipal work, along with the issuance of laws related to the administrative divisions of the state, the naming of municipalities, and the formation of separate municipal councils for each municipality.
The year 1990 witnessed an important shift, represented in the abandonment of these councils and the establishment of a single central municipal council for all municipalities.
A law issued in 1990 regulated this transformation, and stipulated that the council would be comprised of 21 elected members for three-year term.
In 1998, Qatar saw another important leap in this field, with a law issued on the election of CMC members by direct secret ballot system, in addition to raising the number of members to 29.
According to the mechanism specified by the law, the 29 members of the Council are elected from among several candidates, one for each electoral districts.
The term of the Council shall be four years commencing from the date of its first meeting.
During the last four months of that term, elections for the new council shall take place.
In the past two decades, six municipal elections were held in Qatar, amidst a large participation of citizens in the candidacy and election process, both male and female.
Qatar is currently preparing to host the 7th Council elections, scheduled for June 22.
The elections for the first session of the CMC members were took place on March 8, 1999, and saw 84 candidates, including one woman.
The second elections were held on April 7, 2003, in which 84 candidates, including three women, competed.
Municipal elections were held for the third time in April 2007, in which 116 candidates, including three women, competed.
The elections for the fourth term were held on May 10, 2011, in which 79 candidates competed, four of them women.
The fifth term was held on May 13, 2015, with 110 candidates, including five women, while the sixth elections were organised on April 16, 2019, including five women.
In Decree No 17 of 1998, the Qatar legislature assigned the task of organising the elections for the CMC members to the Ministry of Interior (MoI), with more than 15 departments co-operating to organise, prepare and follow up on the elections.
A number of other authorities in the country co-operated with the MoI in managing the electoral process, in particular the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE), the Supreme Judiciary Council, and the Ministry of Municipality.
The Qatar legislature has made the Council independent and its budget attached to the general budget of the State.
It has also given the Council members complete freedom in expressing their opinions and suggestions in accordance with the specific competencies of the Council.
According to the law, the Council aims to work with the means available on the progress of the country in the field of municipal affairs, and has, in order to achieve its objectives, to exercise in particular the specialisations, powers, and responsibilities, including the monitoring of the implementation of laws, resolutions, and regulations relating to the powers and competences of the ministry and the council, including laws, resolutions, and regulations related to the affairs of building regulation, land planning, roads, shops, industrial, public and other regulations in which it provides for the authorisation of the council has the authority to monitor the execution.
The Council is also concerned with the research in the areas of planning and programmes, economic, social, financial and administrative for municipal and agricultural affairs, especially the following: study of the desires or proposals submitted by members of the Council on any issue that comes in the areas of municipal and agricultural affairs, consider and express opinions on issues and issues related to municipal affairs that are referred to the Council by the ministry or other government agencies, make recommendations regarding the issuing of laws or taking any procedures or measures that the Council deems necessary or beneficial to the public interest.
The CMC examines petitions and complaints related to municipal and agricultural affairs, monitors the implementation of laws and regulations for food intended for human consumption, proposes the establishment of public parks and follow up on their maintenance, monitors the implementation of laws and regulations for the cleaning of streets and roads and collecting and disposing of waste and dirt, oversees public transportation of passengers, and monitors the implementation of the laws of commercial licences, hotels, entertainment places, parks, simple occupations, and street vendors.
The Council's competence includes monitoring the implementation of advertising licence laws and preventing public inconvenience, proposing the names given to cities, villages, neighbourhoods, streets, squares, markets, and parks, monitoring and regulating the regulations for markets and shops, and other specialisations specified by law.
During the previous six sessions, the Council succeeded in keeping pace with the comprehensive development renaissance, and made more than 600 recommendations covering all sectors that fall within the core of the Council's competencies defined by law.
The CMC is affiliated with a number of committees, including the Co-ordination and Follow-up Committee, which was formed pursuant to a Cabinet decision.
The Committee is concerned with organising, co-ordinating and following up the work between the CMC, ministries, other government entities, and public bodies and institutions, and includes five representatives of the Council, as well as representatives of a number of ministries and government institutions.
The Committee is also concerned with expressing opinions on issues of common interest that fall within the competence of the CMC with other government entities, and facilitating its access to information, studies and reports related to its competencies from ministries and other agencies.
The Co-ordination and Follow-up Committee is also responsible for following up on the decisions and recommendations issued by the CMC and co-ordinating between the CMC and other ministries and government agencies in studying issues of common interest.
The stages that municipal work has gone through and its development mechanisms over the past decades, which were established in 1999 through the ballot boxes, reflect the State's keenness to enhance popular participation and provide opportunities for men and women to contribute towards the development, transformation, and building of modern Qatar.