2023 Emirati parliamentary elections

7 October 2023
20 of the 40 seats in the Federal National Council
Turnout	44.00% ( 9.19pp)
Party Seats +/– Independents 20 0 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Speaker before Speaker after Saqr Ghobash Saqr Ghobash

Parliamentary elections were held in the United Arab Emirates on 7 October 2023 to elect 20 of the 40 members of the Federal National Council.^[1][2][3] As political parties are banned in the UAE, all candidates run as independents.^[4] The election is the first to be conducted completely electronically, 92.69% of voters chose to vote remotely in the election cycle.^[2][3]

Electoral system

The Federal National Council consists of 40 members, 20 of whom are appointed by the rulers of each emirate.^[5][6] and 20 are elected by single non-transferable vote in seven electoral colleges based on the emirates. The colleges of Abu Dhabi and Dubai elect four members each, the colleges of Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah three each, and the colleges of Ajman, Fujairah and Umm al-Quwain two each.^[7][8] Since the 2019 election, the FNC has a gender quota, requiring 50% of FNC members to be women.^[4]

Not all citizens are eligible to vote. Instead, voters are handpicked and chosen through an electoral college, the membership of which was expanded from 337,738 in 2019 to 398,879 in 2023.^[9][10]

Results

Preliminary results were release on 7 October, and results were certified on 13 October.^[8] The national election committees of all emirates, except the committees of Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah, allocated half of their elected seats to the highest voted for candidates of each gender to meet their gender quotas; the appointed seats for each emirate need to ultimately achieve the quota.

References