First day ends in UAE elections ~ However....the voters were carefully chosen....

BBC ^ | Saturday, 16 December 2006, 17:36 GMT | BBC Staff

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

First day ends in UAE elections

Only 1% of citizens will be allowed to vote

Polling has ended on the first day of landmark national elections in the United Arab Emirates, in which under 1% of citizens are allowed to vote.

Voters hand-picked by the government are choosing half of the Federal National Council, an advisory body.

Voting began in two of the UAE's seven emirates, Abu Dhabi and Fujairah. Other emirates vote during the coming week.

Early results confirmed a woman, Amal Abdullah al-Kubaissi, as the winner of one of four seats in Abu Dhabi.

"This is an honour I will carry... all my life. It is proof that the Emirati people are [politically] aware," she told the AFP news agency.

The candidates standing for election were also hand-picked by the Emirati government.

However, ministers have said the vote is the start of a wider process that will see participation extended.

The BBC's Julia Wheeler, in Dubai, says it is also expected that the powers of the assembly will change, with the first council debating a new constitution.

	VOTING DATES AND LOCATIONS Saturday 16th - Abu Dhabi, Fujairah Monday 18th - Dubai, Ras Al Khaimah Wednesday 20th - Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain

Polling stations in the last of the Gulf Arab monarchies to introduce elections opened at 0800 local time (0400 GMT) and closed at 1900 local time (1500 GMT).

The voting is taking place in the different emirates over Saturday, Monday and Wednesday.

The voters, who number fewer than 7,000 men and women, have been selected by the rulers of the seven emirates which make up the UAE.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[Wuli]

Maybe someday the US "guest worker" program will make us like the UAE, where no matter how many "citizens" can vote, guest workers comprise about 80% of the workforce in the country.

In fact, EVERY country in the world with a large guest worker program is now, or is quickly becoming, politically and socially dysfunctional.

The UAE has the advantage that its dictatorial rulers can refuse, with impunity, to make any adjustments for how little of the population in the nation has any actual stake in the nation.

Their second class foreign work force comes from such impoverished situations and works under such conditions of near economic servitude (employers keep the passport until the term of the contract is completed), that together with their security controls in the nation, there is little chance of rebellion by what is quickly becoming a disenfranchised majority.

UAE is a "company" and a country. The "corporations" and the capital are adjuncts of the accounts of the ruling family and the national government accounts, of which there is often little true distinction. No matter how many "companies" are created (like UAE World Ports), they all lead back to the ruling family which is, financially the country. It is undertandable, given their actual structure, that they would consider a truely democratic majority an apostasy. But, it fits with everything else that has not changed in the Middle East since the 7th century.

[weegee]

The left around the world clearly tried to influence the 2004 election through campaign contributions, aid (financial and volunteer) to Moveon.Org et al, and through protest, press, polling, propaganda, and public performance.

They claimed that they SHOULD be able to vote in the US President election since the whole world had to deal with the outcome. So much for US soverignty.

Can we get the UN out of the US (and vice versa) now?

[skepsel]

The guest workers are foreigners with no legal right to vote, how can they becomine "a disenfranchised majority" when they form no part of the polity and never held the franchise to begin with?

[Wuli]

You are splitting hairs (though beyond the technical I doubt that the essential point was misunderstood - even by you, but to please the language purists maybe I should have said "never-to-be-franchised" majority.

And, by the why, only a few (citizen or otherwise) held, or holds anything approaching a "franchise" even now.

[skepsel]

Friend I don't have any hairs left to split, and no, "even I", didn't misunderstand the "essential point" you made. Although it's not the point you think you made.

You seem to think the government of the U.A.E. has no legitimacy because it isn't a western style democracy. Would letting a mob of transient contract workers decide the fate of the U.A.E. be an improvement?

Perhaps in the American neighborhoods where foreign nationals are a majority they should be allowed to vote.

Was the democracy of Athens lessened because only full citizens held the franchise and barbarians, slaves, women and resident Greek aliens didn't?

I'm not splitting hairs friend, I'm insisting on the necessary precision of terms that makes rational informed debate possible. Sorry if the difference between apples and oranges discombobulates you.

[Wuli]

"You seem to think the government of the U.A.E. has no legitimacy because it isn't a western style democracy."

Legal legitimacy it has, moral it has not; it is a dictatorhship of a single family - like and heirloom.

"Was the democracy of Athens lessened because only full citizens held the franchise and barbarians, slaves, women and resident Greek aliens didn't?"

Yes; it was "lessened" if only for slavery alone.

A "neighborhood" and a consequence, is not the same as a nation and an intentional condition.

I am not at all discombobulated; but amused.