On Saturday, December 16, 2006, the motions for the first leg of the first-ever election in the United Arab Emirates were performed. A nominated electoral college voted candidates to half the seats of the Federal National Council. The most exciting moment for the journalists came when the Dubai Police chief refused to sign a statement needed for filing the nominations: attesting that he was a person of good conduct.
The police chief’s refusal to present a good conduct certificate made headlines in the local press. He considered it discriminatory, the English media reported that he felt “differentiated against,” and said that while those who were nominated to the Federal National Council were not asked for such a certificate, those filing their papers for elections were asked for such a certificate. For someone who has served as chief of Dubai Police for 26 years out of his 37 years of service with the state, such a requirement was deeply humiliating. At the same time, the minister in-charge of the elections noted that all candidates were equal before the law.
The irony of this comment in a monarchy may have been lost on him, but the most volatile moment in the coverage of the elections had come and gone. Since then what one got was know-the-candidate features, ads in the Arabic press, ads in Arabic television, and coverage of election meetings, which in large measure were more like caucuses where the candidates put forth their agenda. While it would be easy to dismiss these elections as token elections in what is being touted as a three-stage process towards mass democracy, what it also has led to is political reporting of the most nascent kind in the country.
For those of us who are immersed in the processes of democratic politics, whether it is the spectacle of the table-turning and mike-throwing legislature or the reasoned debate of a parliamentarian or the hurly burly of street politics, we forget that the media that do not work in democracies, and have no desire or incentive to be a force for democracy, do not have a concept of political reporting. So, even the mildest stirrings of conversation, the appearance of ads, and presentation of priorities make for excited journalists and journalism. The fact that even when the electoral college is nominated there can be factions formed within them to support a slate of candidates who do not officially belong to any political formation except may be shared interests or loyalties is enough to enliven the reporters to think of such coverage as wholly new.
The knowledge that such things happen all the time in other countries does not take away the enthusiasm of discovering first hand that some candidates are forming groups, or that others are saying not so charitable things about each other, or that women are campaigning in a different fashion than the men. The list could go on. The last month has seen the appearance of political journalism for the first time in the United Arab Emirates. Ideas of accountability, focusing on everyday issues like rent, immigration, safety: the daily staple of politics and hence of political reporting were seen for the first time.
Surprising then to notice that there was no explicit discussion at the recently concluded Arab Strategy Forum to discuss press freedoms. At least one participant went so far as to suggest that the non-payment of taxes led to lack of pressure for accountability among the population. But if the recent coverage of elections here in the UAE is to be taken as some measure, the causal arrow towards accountability does not run from taxes, but from democratic participation of even the most symbolic variety. For it is a proposition to be seriously considered that it is the presence of an opposition that is integral to accountability and its amplificatory instrument, the press. It is not the mechanism of holding elections that allows for the space where political journalism begins or flourishes, but the presence of an oppositional force.
The faint intimations of democracy in the UAE led to contrary views being expressed. The moment these contradictions were reported, the idea of who is accountable and in what measure followed. The elections might not have brought back, to the expatriates in this Gulf country, memories of a more vigorous political process they are used to in their homelands. But at least for the journalists covering the events, the transformation of the court amanuensis to the political reporter began.
