ABU DHABI (Reut) - Just over a quarter of eligible voters cast their ballot for the second election held in the United Arab Emirates for an advisory council that the Gulf Arab state hopes will forge closer links between its rulers and the people. Half the seats in the 40-seat Federal National Council (FNC) were contested by 468 candidates seeking the votes of the 129,000-strong electorate -- just 12 percent of the Emirati nationals in the world's No.3 oil exporter. A little over 36,000 people, or 28 percent of those eligible, had cast their ballots by the time polls closed. "Some expected, including me, a bigger turnout," Anwar Gargash, the minister in charge of the election, told reporters in Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital.