“We will be doing this in phases, as part of our efforts to further the quality of democracy in the governing structure of the country,” Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair said.
“Currently, we are in the phase where we are planning to expand the electoral college for electing the members of the parliament or the FNC,” the Speaker told a group of journalists visiting from different parts of the world.
At present, Their Highnesses the Rulers of the seven emirates nominate members to the electoral college, which in turn elects representatives to the FNC.
The UAE’s national election committee (NEC) approved 6,689 electoral college members, including 1,189 women, as part of the preparations for the country’s first elections to the FNC, which took place in 2006.
The FNC seats are distributed to the member emirates as follows: Eight seats for each Abu Dhabi and Dubai, six seats each for Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah, and four seats each for Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah.
“The question as to whether we want to step up the share of elected members in the FNC to 100 per cent will be considered only after we complete this phase,” he said.
“When we achieve 50 per cent elected representation, we will evaluate our experience, then consider the need for further expansion. Eventually (full democratic representation) is going to happen in the UAE, but if you ask me when, I don’t know,” Al Ghurair said.
The Speaker, however, ruled out the possibility of multi-party democracy in the UAE. “Our FNC members should have allegiance to the citizens and to UAE, and not to the partisan interest of a political party, especially in periods of transformation,” he said.
“Our members can speak their opinions independently. Had they been members of a political party, they would be able to speak in accordance with the directives of party leaders. We think our system is more democratic than the multi-party system,” he said.
“You don’t know, it is a nightmare for me to manage the 39 parties in the FNC, but I manage it,” he added in a lighter vein.
According to him, there was no need to have reservation for women in the FNC, as they were able to get elected without the quota system.
Already, 23 per cent of the parliament members are elected women, while there are four women in the 22-member UAE Cabinet.
The Speaker said the country would take all steps to preserve the national identity. “There are strong possibilities of national identities getting eroded in a society like ours, where the expats outnumber the nationals. So we have taken certain measures to protect our national characteristics,” he said.
“The UAE is an open society, a progressive society and coexist with the international community even while maintaining our identity”.
On the much-debated Media Law of the UAE, he said that the FNC had changed 60 per cent of the articles in that draft law introduced by the government, and the government accepted all of them.
“We have invited the editors of all the papers in the UAE for discussions on the draft, and we incorporated their suggestions into the law. Some of them came and some didn’t. We couldn’t have waited for all the editors to come up with the suggestions, because we had a time-frame,” he said.
On the occupation of UAE islands by Iran, the Speaker said the UAE was keen to resolve the issue through mutual dialogue or through the international court of justice. But Iran is not agreeable to either suggestion. “We hope Iran will eventually be ready for dialogue on the issue.”
