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Emiratis cast votes to elect UAE Federal National Council

Xinhua, October 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

A total of 224,000 eligible voters of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are called on Saturday to cast their votes for members of the UAE Federal National Council (FNC) in Abu Dhabi, state news agency WAM reported.

Thirty-six poll stations across the seven emirates opened at 8:00 a.m. local time (4:00 GMT) and will close at 8:00 p.m. (16:00 GMT).

The FNC consists of 40 members with half of them are elected by the citizens of the UAE through general election and another half by electoral college and rulers of each emirate.

Anwar Al-Gargash, the UAE minister of state for FNC affairs, told English-language UAE daily Gulf that the country's leadership was keen on enhancing the culture of political participation as political progress requires the advice of the community, adding the FNC has an advisory function to the UAE government.

In the last elections in 2011, around 130,000 Emirati citizens were eligible to vote, while more than 224,000 are eligible in 2015.

According to Gulf news, around one million UAE citizens are national passport holders out of a total population of over nine million. Endit