In order to ensure that all preparations on the ground are made perfectly and everything that the electoral committees need is fully ready, Prime Minister and Minister of Interior H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani visited yesterday the central headquarters of the candidates’ committee of the Shura Council elections at Qatar University
. The visit is meant to ensure that preparations for registering of candidates that start on August 22 to August 26 are in place. This is not the first visit of the Prime Minister to these headquarters as he visited a number of registration centers several times before, as part of the close follow up to the preparations step by step and the progress of the registration processes in a way that the first Shura Council elections require.
The Media Support Committee for the Shura Council elections has also announced offering of free media services for candidates in the upcoming Shura Council elections aimed at enriching the electoral campaigns and reaching voters easily.
The media committee will start registration for nominates wishing to benefit from the services provided by Qatar Media Corporation (QMC) which includes television interviews to enable candidates introduce themselves and their election programmes, along introductory profile of each candidate.
The supervisory committee for the Shura Council elections had also extended working hours and gave one more week to citizens for filing complaints and listen to their concerns and objections related to the initial voter lists. All these together reflects the extent of care being taken to implement the laws and follow system in these elections to ensure their integrity.
Alongside these efforts, there are other measures being taken like steps focusing on raising awareness of the citizens about the elections laws and procedures and its ultimate objectives. It is meant to ensure fair and honest competition so that the focus of election campaigns should remain on national unity, solidarity and cohesion of society members to serve the citizens and aspirations of future generations.
This will help to choose the most qualified and best representative of the citizens’ aspirations and their needs. Giving this amount of attention to the upcoming elections by follow-up and transparency is not only for the purpose of ensuring its success and integrity but also to lay solid foundations for upcoming elections which will be following the examples set by this election and experiences learned from it as State believes that building on sound foundations is much better than making mistakes or working to address deficiencies in the future
