Though the government will not allow local observers to monitor the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, Gihan Shahine discovers that rights groups remain undaunted Three coalitions involving 34 rights and civil society groups are filing an urgent lawsuit before the administrative court against Mamdouh Marie, the chairman of the Presidential Elections Commission (PEC), which, under a new law on political rights, is assigned to supervise the overall electoral process. Rights groups said Marie rejected a request they had submitted a month earlier to the committee's secretariat, as well as to the ministries of interior and justice, to allow local observers to monitor the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. Marie did not provide a direct answer but was quoted last week in the independent daily Al-Masri Al-Youm as saying that local monitors would not be allowed into polling stations. This week, however, Marie refuted having rejected local monitoring, claiming the committee did not receive any request in the first place. Mohamed Zarie, director of the Egyptian Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners (HRAAP) and the coordinator of the National Campaign for the Monitoring of Elections (NCME), which involves four non-governmental organisations, countered that "Marie denied having received requests because rejecting local monitoring, as well as full judicial supervision, would immediately raise questions about the legitimacy of the elections." The government had earlier rejected foreign monitoring of the polls on the grounds that it would constitute interference into the country's local affairs. This time, however, "there is no reason why the government should not allow local observers unless it is up to something," Zarie said. Or else, exclaimed an equally disenchanted Saadeddin Ibrahim, head of the Ibn Khaldun Centre for Development Studies, and coordinator of the Independent Monitoring Committee (IMC) which involves six NGOs, "what would the government fear if it intends to have free and fair elections?" Many analysts speculate the government is particularly concerned about voter turnout and does not want actual numbers to be exposed. Few doubt that President Hosni Mubarak will win in this fall's first ever multi-candidate elections since the current political and legislative climate does not allow for genuine competition. "It is the number of those casting ballots that will decide the legitimacy of the coming president," explained Bahieddin Hassan, director of Cairo Centre for Human Rights and member of the Civil Coalition for the Monitoring of the Elections (CCME). Should the top vote- getter attract less than 50 per cent of Egypt's eligible voters, Ibrahim said, "a run-off will be held between the two candidates who received the most votes." Getting the actual number of voters will seem like teething for rights groups who have vowed to pursue their "legal right" to monitor the elections. The government's approval was necessary to facilitate the monitoring process -- or at the very least not impede it -- and it remains questionable whether the administrative court will rule in favour of rights groups. If not, Ibrahim said local monitors would go for "exit polling as the second best option". That is, observers will have to depend on reports from on-site voters, media reporters and candidate's lawyers. Which will probably be the same case with foreign observers. Hassan said at least two American NGOs [The International Democratic Institute and the International Republic Institute] have opened offices in Egypt and are already engaged in the monitoring process. "Every day the country receives a new foreign rights group coming to observe the elections," Hassan said. "Rejecting foreign monitoring was actually a joke. No one can prevent anybody from entering a country and observing elections." For Hassan, impeding local and foreign supervision would do the government more harm than good. "It will only reflect negatively on the final reports, which will also depend on exaggerated media reports that may be fiercer in their criticism than professional monitors," Hassan explained. An equally undaunted Zarie vowed local monitors would still observe the elections from inside the polling stations despite the government's refusal. Observers, he said, are normal citizens who would go to cast their ballots and, in the meantime, observe the legitimacy of the electoral process. "They will, for instance, observe if a judge is present at every balloting box, whether voters are asked to dip their fingers in phosphoric ink, and if balloting boxes are transparent," Zarie said. Observers will also see if security forces prohibit voters from casting their ballots, count the number of voters while exiting polling stations, and compare resultant figures with official ones. In villages where the population density is relatively low, an optimistic Zarie hopes observers would also manage to check whether voters' lists are rigged. "People know each other in villages and it would be easy for them to spot lists that included the names of their deceased relatives, neighbours and friends," Zarie said. All local monitors have similar plans to oversee the overall electoral process -- observing the voting itself, evaluating voter classifications, results and complaints, and providing a final detailed report. Zarie said that thanks to a USAID fund of $250,000 and self-financing, the NCME has trained 270 lawyers and journalists to cover all 222 polling stations across the country. For his part, Ibrahim had no qualms announcing having received funds from the National Democratic Institute to train 1,500 local observers and gathering donations from Egyptian businessmen for the job. "Receiving foreign funds is no stigma," Ibrahim said. "We have a national goal, which is to see how internationally compliant the overall electoral process is." Serving a similar purpose, Hafez Abu Seada, the chair of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) and CCME coordinator, said his centre had already used its legacy of experience in both local and foreign monitoring to train at least 2,500 monitors to observe the elections via a random sample of 80 polling stations in various governorates. The CCME has obtained the support of the government-backed National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) and, in a bid to prove its "neutrality", the coalition has formed a consultative committee of 50 public figures from different fields. For all local monitors, initial moves already included an assessment of the political and legislative environment prior to the elections, an evaluation of whether candidates were given equal opportunities to announce their candidacy, and an investigation into whether the candidates are allowed fair representation in the state-owned media. Ibrahim said the electoral process already had an "inauspicious start" when [President] Mubarak was granted the crescent sign despite witnesses and news agencies reports that suggested Al-Ghad Party's Ayman Nour was the first to show up when the door opened for candidates to announce they were running for the presidency. Ibrahim was also critical of the presidential media campaign where "[President] Mubarak is taking up two-thirds of all coverage in the national press and the state-owned TV." Hassan, however, said TV coverage was "surprisingly better and fairer than the disastrous bias of the national press to the ruling party's candidate." He noted, however, that the media "generally showed clear bias against Ayman Nour despite the fact that he is amongst the strongest three candidates, including President Mubarak and Wafd Party's Noaman Gomaa."
