UAE to have ministers for tolerance and happiness

The oil-rich home of glitz, the United Arab Emirates, has appointed new ministers of "tolerance" and "happiness" as part of a cabinet reshuffle, as it attempts to cement its position as the Arab world’s most eye-catching nation.

The announcement on Monday night followed weeks of speculation over the nature of the well-signalled government shake-up.

The prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who is also the ruler of Dubai, had said he wanted a “council of youth” with its own minister who would him – or her – self be no older than 25.

That position was confirmed, with an as yet unnamed woman of 22 said to be appointed to the job. Sheikh Mohammed – on Twitter, his preferred medium of communication with his people, when he is not writing books and poetry – also announcing a series of ministry mergers and a decision to “outsource” large areas of government to semi-autonomous quangos and the private sector.

He also said there would be two new positions altogether. “A new post, minister of state for happiness, will align and drive government policy to create social good and satisfaction,” he said. “The post of minister of state for tolerance has been created to promote tolerance as a fundamental value in UAE society.”

He gave few details of what the daily duties of either minister would be, except, in the first case, to promote a virtuous and family-focused society.

However, the ministry of tolerance at least is symbolically important – the vast majority of UAE residents are expatriates, many of them Christian, Shia Muslim and from other religions besides the Sunni Islam that is the state's official creed.

Two of the 9/11 suicide attackers were from the UAE, and its acceptance of a wide variety of "lifestyles", including alcohol-fuelled all-night partying, is not universally popular.

Tolerance is not likely to be extended to political opposition – scores of activists and Islamists have been jailed in the UAE since the start of the Arab Spring to prevent "contagion" spreading to the Gulf state.

The UAE an unusual amalgam of seven emirates, former British Gulf protectorates or "Trucial States", on the south side of the Gulf. Virtually all its natural wealth – mainly oil – is held by the largest emirate, Abu Dhabi, whose hereditary ruler or emir is the federation's president.

Dubai, the second largest emirate, which has very little oil by comparison, has had to compete by becoming an outward-looking trading, transport and tourism hub, giving it a very different outlook to other parts of the region.

As the city's ruler as well as the country's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed has ensured Dubai has kept in the headlines by overseeing the building of the world's tallest building, offshore artificial islands, an indoor ski slope in the desert and a range of luxury tourist beach hotels.

Like other Gulf countries, the UAE has also attracted expatriate workers and investors by offering a consistent policy of zero income tax – something now under threat as the oil price falls and even Saudi Arabia is showing a massive budget deficit.

The new reshuffle may have the effect of saving money – a big driver of economic reforms announced by the authoritarian Gulf states in the last few months.

Sheikh Mohammed however said he had been motivated by the need to keep government close the people. He has modelled his style of government partly on Singapore, another autocratic state that has kept its population happy by economic growth and more open relations with the outside world than its neighbours.

“Governments must be flexible," Sheikh Mohammed said. "We don’t need more ministries, but more ministers capable of dealing with change.

“We want a young and flexible government that will fulfil our youth’s aspirations and achieve our people’s ambitions.”

The sheikh showed signs of feeling personally humiliated by the emirate's near economic collapse and subsequent debt bail-out by Abu Dhabi in the financial crash of 2008 to 2009. But he has since come to see himself vindicated in his approach to development by the fact that the UAE has sailed through the turmoil of the Arab Spring relatively untroubled.

In a book – Flashes of Thought – published 18 months ago Sheikh Mohammed described how he had warned fellow Arab leaders for years that they had to provide better services and education to their overwhelmingly young populations, or risk being overthrown by the same revolutionary forces that had brought many of them to power in the first place.

Sultan Al Qassemi, a prominent Emirati political commentator who is also a member of one of the other emirates' royal families, wrote an analysis of the Gulf states' political strategy for the Middle East Institute coinciding with the reshuffle.

"The collapse of numerous Arab states and the emergence of ISIS [Isil] have fuelled a sense of urgency within the GCC to insulate their countries from the mayhem around it," he wrote.