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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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