ABU DHABI, 17 December 2006 — The first-ever elections to be held in the United Arab Emirates started yesterday as hundreds of voters cast their votes to elect members of the Federal National Council (FNC). The historic FNC process was initiated by UAE President Sheikh Khalifa ibn Zayed Al-Nahayan to boost wider popular participation in the political process.
The FNC is the UAE’s advisory council, formed under the Provisional Constitution of the United Arab Emirates in 1971 as a permanent component of the country’s governing structure, which also includes the Supreme Council, president, Cabinet and judiciary.
According to the UAE Constitution, federal draft laws first have to pass through the FNC for review and recommendations before they are sent to the Cabinet for approval.
The FNC comprises 40 members from all seven emirates. The 6,689 members of the Electoral College, which includes 1,189 women, will now elect 20 members of the FNC. The rulers of the seven emirates directly appoint the rest. Previously the rulers chose all the members. Around 440 candidates are running for the seats, including 65 women.
Voting, which started early in the morning in the capital Abu Dhabi and Fujairah, went smoothly with hundreds of voters casting their ballots.
In Abu Dhabi, 1,759 electoral-college voters will select four FNC members from among 100 candidates, including 14 women. Around 50 percent of the voters had cast their ballots by late afternoon in the capital. Present at the voting station were Minister of State for FNC Affairs and Chairman of the National Election Committee (NEC) Anwar Mohammad Gargash, and other ENC members, observers as well as members of the press.
The emirate of Fujairah also witnessed a strong turnout with many of the 418 voters showing up to cast their ballots. They will elect two members for the FNC from among 32 men candidates and one woman candidate. FNC elections in the other five emirates are scheduled for tomorrow and Wednesday. The polling process is being supervised by a team of 25 officials headed by Mohammad Yousuf, chairman of the Journalists Association and his deputy.
The elections are the first steps of a modernizing process for the FNC. The government strategy is to gradually implement each stage in order to ensure a measured and successful outcome.
The elections will see half of the FNC members elected through an Electoral College of every emirate that will be at least 100 times as many as the number of its representatives in the FNC. Later, regulations and constitutional amendments will be introduced to empower the FNC and increase the number of its members. The goal is to have half of the FNC members picked in general elections sometime in the future.
