30-31 January: Middle East and North Africa Energy, London
6-7 February: E & P Information and Data Management, London
6-8 February: PowerGen Middle East, Doha
13-15 February: Kuwait Oil and Gas Summit and Exhibition, Kuwait
14-15 February: 9th Annual Trade and Export Finance Conference, Dubai
27-29 February: Offshore Arabia, Dubai
March (date to be confirmed): Middle East Alternative Investment Summit (location to be confirmed)
3-5 March: Saudi Safety and Security, Saudi Arabia
5-8 March: Middle East Investment Summit, Dubai
5-8 March: Hedge Funds World Middle East, Dubai
6-7 March: Saudi Downstream, Saudi Arabia
5-8 March: Middle East Investment Summit, Dubai
20-21 March : 3rd Annual Middle East Securities Forum, Abu Dhabi
25-27 March: Gulf Environment Forum, Saudi Arabia
25-27 March: Saudi Innovation, Diversification & Investment, Saudi Arabia
24-25 April: Middle East Real Estate Summit, Abu Dhabi
9-10 May: SMI's LNG 2012, London
13-15 May: WEPower, Saudi Arabia
18-20 June: Iraq Petroleum, London
Untitled Page
Issue 676, 12 December 2001
Reform Ideas Gain Pace Among UAE Opinion-Makers
The appointment of women to the Federal National Council (FNC) next year appears increasingly probable as prominent Emiratis press the case for political modernisation with ever more boldness. While direct elections to the FNC still appear to be some way off, there is a growing expectation of substantial changes to the Council’s composition and powers when the regular triennial renewal of its membership falls due in 2002.
Reform—and even democratisation—is now discussed among intellectuals and professionals who have noted the example set by Bahrain, with its promise of free legislative elections in 2004. Privately, some supporters of liberalisation are worried that the current focus on security and terrorism will push domestic political reform off the agenda. But if anything the issue is being more openly debated, with FNC Speaker Mohammed Khalifa Al-Habtoor calling for the assembly to be granted powers to initiate legislation.
Ultimate decisions will be taken by the seven Supreme Council members—and if Abu Dhabi and Dubai can agree on the way forward the other Emirates will almost certainly follow. Most significantly, UAE President and Abu Dhabi Ruler Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahayan, is thought to favour change. The position of Dubai’s ruling Al-Makhtoum family is unknown; Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Makhtoum is keen to promote Dubai’s credentials as a global hub but less keen to share political power.
Where possible UAE rulers prefer to move by consensus. The constitution permits each Emirate to select its FNC members in any way it chooses, but it is unlikely that any one ruler would hang back and, for example, opt not to include a woman in his batch of FNC members while all the others did so. Equally, the odds are against one Emirate forging ahead with a new approach while the others lag behind. Sharjah’s Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi, who has appointed five women to his Emirate’s Consultative Council, would almost certainly like to include women; but he will probably want to be sure that others are doing so too (GSN 675/6).
In Ras Al-Khaimah, Crown Prince Sheikh Khalid Bin Saqr Al-Qasimi has even publicly raised the case for electing FNC members. But his attitude is not universally shared among senior members of the RAK Ruling Family. Director of the Ruler’s Office Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al-Qasimi—another son of Emir Sheikh Saqr Bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi—questions the relevance of democratic structures to the UAE.
Diplomats tend to see no major changes on the horizon, but a view is emerging across a swathe of Emirati opinion that the UAE cannot stand aside from moves towards broader political participation underway in other GCC states except Saudi Arabia. Few Emiratis want their country to be perceived as a conservative backwater.
Formal parliamentary politics are seen as essential by a growing number of intellectuals because the traditional paternalistic ruler’s majlis system cannot cope with the demands of modern government and consultation.
The old style Majlis—in which any individual can petition a ruler for assistance or a specific measure to help their own situation—continues to be a living institution. Rulers continue to place heavy emphasis on meeting people and showing concern for their individual problems. But Emiratis canvassed by GSN said that the traditional majlis no longer provides a broad measure of public opinion or a forum for discussion of technical policy issues. Supporters of reform believe new institutions are needed—and that evolution is under way, notably through the FNC itself, which dates back to the UAE’s formative years.
Sharjah’s Consultative Council—barely two years old—is the only such body at Emirate level, but the FNC’s role is well-established and has been gradually expanded.
A new deal for women
The broadening of its membership to include women would represent a decisive gesture, potentially signalling an increased female presence in other prominent roles, such as the cabinet. Currently, the highest-ranked woman in government is at under-secretary level.
Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Al-Nahayan, wife of Sheikh Zayed and Chair of the UAE Women’s Association, has pressured for change. She wants women to sit in the FNC and government. Among other prominent females who pressed for the change in response to a questionnaire from Gulf News were Chair of the Sharjah Council’s Family Affairs Committee Dr Aysha Al-Roomi (GSN 675/14), Professor of Education at the UAE University and Chair of Ajman’s Humaid Bin Rashid Al-Nuaimi Establishment for Development Dr Amna Khalifa, and Director of the Sharjah Supreme Family Council’s Social Development Centre Moudhi Al-Shamsi.
In an interview with GSN Roomi commented that electoral politics “can be done” and asked: “Why not?” It is precisely because the UAE is well governed, that change could be smoothly accomplished, she believes. “All of the rulers are very popular. Elections will not be difficult, because the rulers are popular,” she said. “They know that the whole world is changing. So they have to do some changes.”
FNC Speaker Al-Habtoor has called for women to take a more prominent role, but accepted that the Supreme Council of rulers should decide whether they should join the FNC.
New powers sought
Habtoor has been publicly pressing for the FNC to be granted legislative powers. “We do need amendments to some articles of the constitution concerning the Council, including giving it the right to propose draft laws,” he told an Arabic language daily Al-Bayan. “This will enable the Council to exercise its duties in a more efficient and flexible way, especially regarding the laws that directly concern citizens... The rapid development in this age necessitates the suggestion of new laws or amendments of some articles.”
Some pro-reform officials privately believe that enhancement of the FNC's powers is a much higher priority than any move to eventual direct elections—an issue about which even some liberal Emiratis remain deeply ambivalent.
As Roomi observed, a move towards direct FNC elections could be accomplished without great upheaval: oil wealth, which finances well-paid jobs and a generous cradle-to-grave welfare system, means that government is fairly popular and ruling families are well-liked. Sheikh Zayed is genuinely loved. In contrast to Kuwait, elections would probably not produce many—if any—parliamentarians strongly opposed to the government.
A question of rights
In a country dependent on migrant labour and where nationals are in a distinct minority, talk of extending personal political rights engenders nervousness in some circles. Even advocates of reform admit to fears that granting the vote to Emirati nationals would gradually nudge the question of nationality and migrant workers’ rights onto the agenda.
The UAE has a long record of quietly granting nationality to a few long-term foreign residents (notably Palestinians). There is some concern that if all citizens had the vote—and thus a formal say in running the country—there might be pressure to extend rights to more foreigners.
Other supporters of democratisation told GSN they were not overly concerned by this issue, pointing out that the question of elections has a much longer history in the UAE than outsiders might realise. In the late-1970s there was an attempt to strengthen the young federation’s central institutions; a joint meeting of the Council of Ministers and the FNC drafted a formal joint demand for a stronger federation, with a larger council to be directly elected by popular vote.
Sheikh Zayed, the driving force behind the creation of a federal UAE, was willing to pursue this agenda of centralisation and democracy, but the proposals were vetoed by Dubai, which was clearly worried that Abu Dhabi might become too dominant and wanted to preserve the prerogatives of the individual emirates. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia mediated in the dispute, whose result was a compromise solution that protected Dubai’s interests. Its ruler, the late Sheikh Rashid, became UAE Vice President and Prime Minister, and the elected federal council was shelved.
…and federal power
The decisive issue in dispute was not so much democratisation—which became an incidental casualty of the inter-Emirate wrangling—as the question of federal power and the degree to which the young state’s seven constituent members would retain control over their own affairs.
The same factors remain in play. Questions of women’s political role or democratisation will be shaped by Rulers’ calculation of their own interests and where they stand in relation to the key Dubai/Abu Dhabi axis.“Each emirate has its own interests,” says one well-connected analyst. “For that reason, you can’t classify Emirates as conservative or liberal.”
Dubai is clearly more westernised than Abu Dhabi in its approach to lifestyle and business development. On political issues it may appear to take a more cautious line, but that is not so much a question of conservatism as of concern to protect its freedom of manoeuvre within the federation.Another observer, a native of Dubai, stresses that in private Emirati debate about political participation is vigorous, and as much so in his home city as anywhere else.
“People are eager for opening up. People in Dubai are in fact as political as in all Emirates. It’s an issue that comes up; people talk about it; people know it is an issue that has to be dealt with one day. Five years down the road, things will be much more liberal than they are today. If Bahrain can democratise, why not the UAE?”
Scenarios for change
Reform advocates sketch out several alternative scenarios for the months ahead. There is broad agreement that Sheikh Zayed and the other rulers will move first to appoint women to the FNC, almost certainly in the next round of appointments to the Council in 2002. Some think there might even be elections to the FNC, at least of male councillors, at that stage too.
But it is more generally thought that the direct election of councillors will be delayed until the following FNC membership renewal (2005), although some speculate that in Sharjah the local Consultative Council might be designated as an electoral college, to choose the Emirate’s FNC representatives from among its own councillors, men and women.
