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 was the first to be conducted completely electronically, 92.69% of voters chose to vote remotely in the election cycle.[2][3]
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]
Preliminary results were released on 7 October, and 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.
^"إعلان نتائج انتخابات المجلس الوطني الاتحادي 2023" [Announcement of Federal National Council Election Results 2023] (video). youtube.com (in Arabic). Emirates News Agency. at 0:48 (for election turnout gender demographics). Retrieved 1 November 2023.
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