|
Dubai: Some Filipino voters were turned away yesterday from polling booths for coming late to cast their ballots, consulate officers said.
The month-long elections got a lukewarm response from Filipino expatriates here. Only 10 per cent of the more than 35,000 registered voters in the UAE cast their absentee ballots for the mid-term elections, the second since Manila passed a law in 2003 allowing overseas citizens to cast votes.
Libran Cabactulan, Philippine ambassador to the UAE, said officials had to turn away six voters who came in at about 12 pm, one hour past the polling deadline for the day.
Polls were open from 3 am to 11 am on May 14 in the UAE, to coincide with poll timings in the Philippines. Prior to this, polls were open from 12 noon to 8pm at three designated polling stations in the country.
Rene Valdez, a bus driver with the Road Transport Authority, was one of the last ones to vote, arriving at the consulate at 11 am, just as the polls were about to close.
"I wanted to vote today because I wanted to do it on the same day as (my countrymen). Better late than never," he shrugged.
Cabactulan said the overall turnout for the elections, in which voters choose their senators, representatives, mayors and other local leaders, was "very low" with more than 2,000 people out of a possible 16,656 voted in Abu Dhabi. The highest turnout was on Friday, May 11 with more than 200.
'Not exciting'
The turnout in Dubai was even lower. Antonio Curameng, Philippine Consul General in Dubai, told Gulf News that 1,487 voted out of 18,800 registered voters. Seventy-three people showed up to vote on the last day, while 187 came by the day before.
Both officials blamed the low turnout on the fact that it was mid-term elections, which typically see fewer voters compared to a presidential election.
"Mid-term elections are not like presidential elections; they are not very exciting," Cabactulan added.
Curameng said another reason for the low turnout was because overseas voting was still an alien idea with many Filipinos.
|
