Page 371 - UAE Truncal States

Chapter Nine

the initiative and to reach decisions on technical issues which the
Rulers might choose not to dispute. It also emerged that some
participants preferred to leave many subjects until after the adoption
of a constitution, which was tantamount to prolonging the transition
period until the federal authority could assert itself. Qatar par-
ticularly strongly advocated forging ahead with establishing the
various organs necessary for the new state to function; it insisted
that fourteen new items were included in the agenda, ranging from
the selection of the first President of the Federation to the unification
of the currencies and a discussion of the establishment of ministries.
One of the important topics discussed at this meeting was the
drafting of the permanent constitution for the federation. The
delegation of Abu Dhabi proposed that several experts in consti­
tutional law should prepare the draft and a committee from the nine
emirates should liaise between the experts and the nine govern­
ments; but the advisers agreed that two Arab experts on consti­
tutional and public international law should be appointed.
When the matter of the election of the President was discussed,
Ra’s al Khaimah’s proposal of a popular referendum was supported
by Bahrain but rejected by the others, who considered as premature
the election of the President before a permanent constitution was
agreed upon. Equally, the proposal to recommend to the Supreme
Council the choice of an administrative seat for the federation was
rejected by 6 to 3 votes. Qatar’s proposal concerning the formation
and function of the Federal Council was rejected by 8 to 1, and
Bahrain’s proposal was adopted to form a follow-up committee to
implement the resolutions of the Supreme Council of Rulers. The
advisers agreed, with one abstention, to recommend the formation of
four committees of five members each: the follow-up committee (seat
in Bahrain), the currency committee (Qatar), the liaison committee
(Abu Dhabi), and the postal services committee (Dubai). The Qatari
proposals to recommend the discussion of ministries, an official
gazette and various financial matters were rejected in favour of
Bahrain’s suggestion to assign all of this to a follow-up committee. It
was agreed that unanimity on all matters within the Supreme
Council of Rulers should be superseded by a system of majority
votes. In the Dubai Agreement the Rulers had settled for unanimity
because the smaller Emirates feared that in any other system they
would be dominated by the larger States.30
The meeting of advisers accentuated three quite different ap-

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