Emirati Federal National Council Elections
Appointed electorateAS OF 2026-09-08 · 5 CONTESTS · Federal National Council, 7 October 2023 · WIKIPEDIA, NATIONAL ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES
Next election · Federal National Council, expected 2027 · Capital · Abu Dhabi in the metro rankings →
Every Federal National Council election from 2006 to 2023: twenty of the council's forty seats elected, the other twenty simply appointed, and every one of the elected seats won by an independent because parties are banned. The number that actually moves is the electoral college handpicked to vote, which grew from 6,595 members to 398,879 in five contests while turnout swung between 27.75% and 74.4%.
Source: Wikipedia election articles · as of 2026-09-08
FNC seats
40
half elected, half appointed by the rulers
Elections since 2006
5
2023 college size
398,879
up from 6,595 members in 2006
Latest
2023
Independents largest
The chronology
Every Federal National Council election since 2006, newest first. Parties are banned in the United Arab Emirates, so all twenty elected seats return independents every time; what changes is who gets to vote at all, as the handpicked electoral college grew from 6,595 members to 398,879 across five contests.
The appointed electoral college · 2006–
Half the Federal National Council is elected, and even that half is chosen not by ordinary citizens but by an electoral college the rulers of each emirate handpick. Political parties are banned, so every one of these five contests returned twenty independents to twenty seats, and the only line that moves from election to election is the college itself: 6,595 members in 2006, expanded to 398,879 by 2023.
The long arc in charts
Hover any point for the exact figure.
Turnout
Turnout has swung from 74.4% in the first election of 2006, before the college had grown large, down to 27.75% in 2011 and back up to 44.0% by 2023.
The largest party's share
Empty by construction: parties are banned and every seat goes to an independent, so there is no party vote share to plot. The number that actually tells this story is the electoral college's size, from 6,595 voters in 2006 to 398,879 in 2023.
No figures on file for this chart.
Records & superlatives
Highest turnout
74.4%
2006, of the elections with a recorded figure
Lowest turnout
27.8%
2011
Most seats won
20
Independents, 2006
Largest electoral college
398,879
The college that elected the 2023 council, up from 337,738 in 2019 and sixty times the 6,595 who voted in 2006.
Smallest electoral college
6,595
The UAE's first ever parliamentary election was decided by a college of 6,595 handpicked citizens, of whom 1,163 were women.
Highest turnout
74.4%
Turnout at the first election, among the small, handpicked college eligible to vote, was the highest of the five.
Lowest turnout
27.75%
Turnout fell by nearly 47 points as the college expanded to 129,274 members, its steepest one-election jump.
How Emirati elections work
An electoral college, not a franchise
Only citizens the rulers of each emirate name to the electoral college may vote at all. That college was 6,595 people in 2006 and 398,879 by 2023, still a fraction of the more than 300,000 citizens over 18 the first election's own article counted.
Half elected, half appointed
The council has 40 seats. Twenty are filled by the electoral college, one non-transferable vote per elector, across seven emirate-based constituencies; the rulers simply appoint the other twenty themselves.
No parties on the ballot
Political parties are banned in the UAE, so every candidate runs and wins as an independent. The seats table on every one of these five contests reads the same: Independents, twenty seats, no change.
A gender quota layered on top
Since the 2019 election, half of the council's seats are reserved for women by directive; where an emirate's elected results fall short, its appointed seats are used to make up the balance.