Emirates ID Leads the Organizations that Enable Elections

03/02/2015

The elections to the Federal National Council (FNC) are expected to be a greater success not just because we are now in the year 2015 and not in 2011, but due to multiple reasons, chief among them being the early decision to form a committee reflective of the eagerness of HH Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE President, for carrying on with the UAE’s experience in political participation. The diverse competencies and expertise that characterize the members of the National Committee for Elections are indicative of that eagerness – no excellence without an excellent work team. In its meeting last Thursday, the Committee reviewed many of the technicalities of the upcoming elections, particularly the services expected of the organizations and authorities, with the Emirates Identity Authority in their forefront. Our society expects the conduct of elections to be more efficient and error-free in light of the Emirates ID’s achievements such as the population register.

We want our society to contribute towards the success of the FNC elections in 2015 and even later, but how?

Success is not the responsibility of the Committee alone. We want the FNC itself to play a role – its chairman, members and the General Secretariat. We want more transparency from the members. We want the relationship between the FNC members and the citizens to be a permanent, lively, vibrant and lasting one, not a seasonal and narrow one focused on the elections.

We want our society to try electoral practices and train themselves on them wherever they are found, especially in public welfare societies and in public joint stock companies.

Elections are an educative experience as well as a knowledge and culture. We have to congratulate HH Dr. Sultan Bin Mohamed Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah for his pioneering idea for setting up consultative councils for children and youth. The schools must begin to take up this role, so must the home – the role of educating and sensitizing.

It is necessary here to appreciate the joint initiative of the Ministry of State for Federal National Council and the UAE University to hold an annual forum for strengthening the values of political participation.

All of us, each according to his capacity, are keen on the continuous success of political participation as per the methods laid down by HH the President. These methods have proved their merit in the midst of  the storms brewing in the region.