Abu Dhabi: By increasing the pool of voters to more than 224,000 for the upcoming Federal National Elections set for October 3, the UAE has taken a gigantic leap towards greater political participation, Tareq Lootah, Undersecretary of the Ministry of State for FNC Affairs and Chairman of the Election Management Committee, said yesterday (Monday).
“The move confirms the determination of the UAE to further promote political participation in the country by adopting a gradual political approach to develop the parliamentary experience, matching the unique cultural experience of the UAE community in all fields,” Lootah told Gulf News.
The bigger the electoral college, he said, the more positive the effect on the electoral process and the political participation in general.
Lootah wished the voter turnout will be big enough to reflect more interest in the electoral process and greater political participation.
Lootah said that more than 35 polling stations will receive voters on October 3 across the emirates.
The council is one of the UAE’s five federal authorities, as established by the Constitution. Its first session was opened on December 2, 1972. The FNC’s official mandate is to provide for public debate of legislation. The FNC discusses proposals and plans of various federal ministries, entities and public institutions.
There are 40 members of the FNC, apportioned among the UAE’s seven emirates, with eight seats each for Abu Dhabi and Dubai, six seats each for Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah and four seats each for Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah.
Since 2006, one-half of FNC members have been elected to serve four-year terms (the other half of the body comprises officials who have been appointed by the Ruler’s Court of the UAE’s seven emirates).
Of the current FNC members, eight are women. In the 2011 elections, 85 of the 468 candidates were women.
The upcoming 2015 parliamentary elections, the third in the nation’s history, will see, for the first time, a single-vote system, a judge to lead the panel that will hear appeals, overseas ballots, and a wider awareness campaign to improve turnout. It will witness greater political participation.
The parliamentary process started as early as 2006, when the first electoral pool of 6,689 Emiratis was selected to vote. The number was small compared to the population of Emiratis, which amounts to a million people.
But in 2011, the second round of FNC elections saw 135,308 Emiratis granted voting rights, an increase of about 20-fold. But turnout was not as expected: whereas in the first round more than 74 per cent of the selected electoral pool voted, in the second round, the number went down to under 30 per cent, seemingly indicating a loss of interest in voting.
University professors, notably, did not make the cut and not one of them was granted the right to vote. Excluding opinion leaders contributed to the lowered turnout, as did the lack of campaigning to raise awareness.
This year’s elections, however, witnesses a wider awareness campaign to educate the people about the vital role of the FNC and instil the culture of democracy in them. And more polling stations have been set up across the country, making it easier for voters to cast their ballots, and if voters happen to live outside the UAE, overseas ballots — also introduced this year — will allow them to lodge their ballots as well.
A single-vote policy has also been introduced, allowing each voter to vote for one candidate in his emirate.
Previously, voters were allowed to vote for as many as half the number of seats from their respective emirates.
The electoral rules state that the Appeals Committee will be headed by a judge, and will include two members with experience and competence to examine all electoral appeals both with regard to nomination of candidates and the voting process and results. The Appeals Committee will report the legal opinion to the National Election Committee (NEC. In the previous elections, the Appeals Committee was headed by the Minister of Justice (a member of the NEC).
What’s new in this year’s elections
One of the most prominent amendments in the new elections guidelines is the introduction of a cutting-edge Counting Committee, which is a central committee headed by the Chairman of NEC with membership of experts competent in the following tasks: counting votes using electronic voting system, announcing the results, and identifying a list of reserve members in each emirate.
The UAE adopted a philosophy of “gradual progress” to initiate democratic practices at a steady pace an in doing so, stave off the turbulence fellow Arab states were plunged into when they undertook this same process.
The UAE’s conviction is that change does not accommodate haste, and that careful, gradual planning does not preclude impressive results; on the contrary, ambitious but ill thought out strategies could be detrimental to a country’s stability.
The majority of the pool of voters are younger than 40, representing 67 per cent of the Electoral College. At the emirate level they constitute 85 per cent of the members in Fujairah, followed by 67 per cent in Abu Dhabi and 70 per cent in Sharjah, Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah. In Umm Al Quwain they make up 69 per cent of the members and in Dubai 59 per cent.
Up to 52 per cent of members in the Electoral College are men while women make up the remaining 48 per cent.
BY SAMIR SALAMA, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
