Lausanne, Switzerland: International Olympic Committee member Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain, wife of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, cited her relief work for Gaza as a reason for not seeking re-election as International Equestrian Federation president.

Princess Haya was expected to win a third four-year term in December, when she will now also have to give up her Olympic position.

“In the last weeks, I have needed to put aside some of my work for the FEI to concentrate on humanitarian relief to Gaza,” Princess Haya said on Tuesday in a statement released by equestrian’s governing body.

“I feel that this is just the beginning,” Princess Haya said.

The princess, who has two young children with Shaikh Mohammad, also cited family reasons.

“To fulfil my commitments to humanitarian work and to raise my children with the time to love them seems truly overwhelming,” she said. “As always, I continue to have the support of my family, and yet, I am painfully aware that their support for me comes at a cost for them.”

The princess, a daughter of the late King Hussain of Jordan, said her own family background weighed on her decision. Her mother, Queen Alia, died in a helicopter crash in Jordan in 1977.

“Fate took my own mother away from me when I was three years of age,” Princess Haya said in the FEI statement. “That experience greatly influences my efforts to strike the right work-life balance with my own two young children. I have always managed this balance in the past, but recent events have made me question my ability to do so.”

Her decision to step aside comes before the September 1 deadline for presidential candidates to register with the FEI.

The election is on December 14, though now in Baku, Azerbaijan. It had been scheduled in Dubai.

Princess Haya was first elected to the FEI in 2006 as a reformer, and steered through a two-term limit into FEI statutes.

That was overturned at a special meeting in April at Lausanne, Switzerland, where member federations voted 103-3 to abolish the term limit.

“The gratitude and loyalty I felt to those who had been so faithful to me was paramount among the countless reasons compelling me to consider a third term,” Princess Haya said.