UAE: Flying Start for Women in First Elections

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Meena Janardhan

DUBAI, Dec 27 2006 (IPS) - The first ever elections to the Federal National Council (FNC) held earlier this month have been remarkable for the participation of women and for the election of one woman to the influential advisory body.

Half the members of the 40-seat FNC are elected by a college of councillors selected by the sheiksh of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, while the remaining are appointed directly by the rulers.

In a commentary published in the Gulf News on Tuesday Prof. Mohammad Abdullah Al Mutawa who teaches sociology at the UAE University at Al Ain said women have made their ‘’political presence through media and meetings with electoral commissions” and that ‘’such awareness and activity indicate that the UAE woman has exceeded her role from an observer to a real player in the local area”.

While only one woman was elected to the FNC from Abu Dhabi, it was seen as a step ahead of Kuwait and Bahrain. ‘‘This is an honour I will carryàall my life. It is proof that the Emirati people are politically aware,” the British-educated professor of architecture at the Emirates University, Amal Abdullah Al-Qubaisi, told the media.

Qubaisi has become the first woman elected through national voting in the conservative Arab Muslim Gulf region where the UAE is the latest state to hold elections.

Sixty-five of the 439 candidates in the UAE were women. In Kuwait, where women were allowed to vote for the first time in August this year, 28 women contested elections and lost. None of the 23 female contestants in Bahrain’s November polls were directly elected; one woman won by default with no other candidate in the race.

Contestants Aisha Kajour and Rima Shorafa, two of the 1,200 women who also exercised their franchise in the Ajman emirate told the media that they voted for each other as a mark of encouragement to the ‘‘women’s bloc” and expressed hope for better opportunities for women in the future.

‘‘As the system evolves, we expect to see more women being elected to play an active role in the government, alongside the two women in the Cabinet,” the state-run Emirates News Agency chief Ibrahim Al-Abed said.

Though only 6,689 of the nearly 825,000 Emiratis were eligible to participate in the first elections to the FNC, the successful completion of the polling process in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) marks the end of first-generation reforms in the six-country Gulf Cooperation Council bloc, and sets the stage for further political innovation.

With the historic, three-phase political exercise ending on December 20, all the GCC countries have now taken a limited, but significant step forward on the road to ‘democracy’. While elections in Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been symbolic in nature, Bahrain and Kuwait polls have witnessed relatively more comprehensive polls.

According to Abed the event expanded popular participation in the government. ‘’The objective is to move forward gradually in accordance with the country’s culture and traditions, and in line with the aspirations of the citizens.”

In the build-up to the elections, the government emphasised that the process was less about democracy and more about broadening political participation. In its view, the modernisation of the political system was a two-stage process – the first would be ‘‘limited elections”, and the second would be to increase the powers of the FNC and make it a ‘‘representative institution”.

The limited scope of participation, according to the Minister of State for the FNC, Anwar Gargash, was due to three reasons- first, the country does not have an ‘‘electoral legacy” and elections were not a necessity in a stable environment; two, the prevailing political tension and instability in the Gulf region and Middle East means that there is no scope for mistakes; ‘‘our region is tough, but we can’t remain stagnant,” he said. Third, elections in the Arab world had proven to be divisive, ‘‘based on sects and regions” which the UAE did not want.

The second stage of the evolving system is likely to see an expansion in the number of members serving in the FNC, as well as increasing its scope of authority and responsibility. And, the final stage of the envisioned three-pronged process is expected to encompass comprehensive and direct elections of half the members of the parliament. This includes possible amendments to the Constitution to increase the number of seats in the FNC to match demographic changes and increase legislative terms of the councils to prepare for direct elections.

Prior to these elections, all the members were appointed by the rulers of the seven emirates. The FNC reviewed legislation, proposed amendments and served in an advisory and consultative role. It had the power to make policy recommendations to the Cabinet as well as to summon and question any minister regarding the ministry’s performance.

In his address to the nation marking the end of the polling process, President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who first announced the parliamentary experiment in December 2005, told the elected members that the trust of the voters was a responsibility that should be shouldered in the best interests of the nation and its citizens.

He urged the government to ‘’provide the appropriate atmosphere to allow the FNC to exercise its role as a bridge between citizens and the state institutions and its executive and administrative leaders”.

Abed told the IPS that ‘‘the elections are a fundamental part of the evolution of government and society; it complements the development taking place in the economic and social fields and involves the citizens in all aspects of the country’s growth”.

However, experts point out that the representation of a mere 0.08 per cent of the total number of citizens in the country is far from encouraging, even if this is a sign of bigger things ahead.

Nearly 80 percent of the country’s 4.2 million population is made up of expatriates. Some analysts say that the reform policy should not be measured just in terms of elections; it has to take into account policies dealing with constitutional development, women’s rights, freedom of the press, corruption, administrative transparency, human rights and education reforms.

One of the positive developments that emerged from the pre-poll campaigns was hitherto unheard of agendas that covered political, social and economic issues involving nationals and expatriates. Key concerns such as better health-care and education facilities, unemployment, inflation, empowering the FNC, achieving demographic balance, and even attempting better interaction between nationals and expatriates were highlighted by candidates.

On the flip side, there were concerns about the enormous amount of money spent in the campaign. Dubai police chief Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim told the Emirates Today English daily on Dec. 15 that about 300 million dirhams (80 million U.S. dollars) were spent by the candidates, which ‘‘could have benefited about 600 needy families”.