The National Election Committee (NEC) has introduced a cap of Dh2 million in poll campaign expenditure for the upcoming Federal National Council (FNC) elections, according to Saeed Al Ghafli, Assistant Undersecretary for Federal National Council Affairs in the Ministry of State for Federal National Council.
The move is made in a bid to neutralise any advantage a rich candidate would have against a normal candidate, Emarat Al Youm reported.
Al Ghafli made the announcement during an interactive session with member of the Electoral College in Abu Dhabi, while introducing the rules and regulations of the entire electoral process.
Other important part of the regulations is that a candidate cannot take any government support or use is position in the government to advance his/her campaign.
Al Ghafli said that the candidate can seek support from local organisations and citizens in his campaign and bid to win one of the 20 seats available for elections.
Interestingly, candidates who cannot raise funds on their own for campaign expenditure would be provide assistance through different channels.
Al Ghafli, who is also a member NEC, said that any member of the Electoral College register and stand for elections, while those form the EC who are above the age of 25 can vote registering and paying of fee of Dh1000.
He said the President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed introduced several reforms to activate political participation in the country and the FNC election is one of them.
As part of the reforms, several amendments were made to the constitution in the year 2009 that included extending the length of the annual regular session of the Council, making it not less than seven months, and extending the legislative term for four years.
Other amendments include empowering FNC to issue regulations with the approval of Supreme Council and expanding the powers of council to respect treaties and international agreements signed by the federation.
The voting will at 8am on September 24and end exactly at 7pm on the same day.
In a statement Monday, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Minister of State for FNC Affairs and Head of NEC, Dr. Anwar Mohammed Gargash, said the leadership believes that the empowerment programme launched by His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE is taking into account the requirements of modernisation and development of political participation.
“As we move closer to the elections of 2011 we are witnessing a major jump in the size and content of the electoral process. This growth is a testament to the success of the President’s initiative to engage Emiratis in the political process and advance political participation through gradual stages, building on the success of each stage,” he said.
Gargash said “there are many qualitative and quantitative indicators that bode well, and that among them the large increase observed in the number of voters, jumping to 130 thousand compared to no more than 7,000 in previous elections.”
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