UAE 'prime example of successful governance'

Abu Dhabi: The UAE, the most successful experiment in Arab regional integration in modern history, will emerge as a political leader in the international arena, historians and officials told Gulf News on Sunday.

"The UAE is the foremost example of effective political engineering in the Arab countries, the Middle East and the Islamic world," said Dr John Duke Anthony, the founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council on US-Arab Relations and Adjunct Professor, Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies.

Dr Anthony added few countries rival, let alone match or surpass, the UAE in terms of the relative success of its system of governance.

"The four oft-cited criteria for such success are assurance of the citizenry's domestic safety, external defence, material well-being, and the overall effectiveness of a civil and peaceful system of justice," said Dr Anthony, who observed first-hand some of the final meetings in which the arrangements for the UAE's governance were agreed by the founders.

He portrays the UAE as a living laboratory of politics as defined by the art of compromise.

Greater influence

Few, if any, are arguably able to cite other than the UAE another Arab or Islamic equivalent of its contemporary application.

On whether the UAE will become a political leader in the global arena, Dr Anthony said all six member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council have to go together.

"This requires they don't push too hard to accommodate other mountain climbers who will not be as fast." He predicted the GCC countries will have greater influence in international institutions.

Professor Fatima Al Sayegh, a UAE historian, told Gulf News the UAE, given its contribution to the IMF (International Monetary Fund) will become a major player in the international economic and political policies.

"The UAE Federation, which was a product of the extraordinary statesmanship of its founding president, the late Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, will remain strong and will endure in the same effective way thanks to the political leadership." However she admitted there are "challenges including the lack of balance between the federal and local entities.

Dr Abdul Kareem Al Rayes, Director-General of the Centre for Documentation and Research, said the UAE will emerge as an advanced country in a matter of years, given the 37-year journey which has made it a country with one of the highest levels of income per capita.

"We have a strong economy even as the global economic and financial crisis is spreading."

They were speaking on the sidelines of a three-day conference, New Perspectives on Recording UAE History.

Drawing on some of the best intellects from around the world the forum provides a platform to foster interaction among historians and academics specialising in the culture of the UAE and the Arabian Gulf and lays the groundwork for future cooperation said Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Presidential Affairs and chairman of the Centre for Documentation and Research.