A last-minute decision to allow local monitors into polling stations had the opposite effect -- raising doubts about the transparency of the polls. Gihan Shahine reports why The government's conflicting decisions about local supervision failed to deter thousands of independent observers who monitored yesterday's historic polls closer than ever. Three coalitions involving 34 local rights groups fielded thousands of trained volunteer journalists and lawyers to observe the elections across the country while thousands of international observers were similarly reported on site. The Presidential Elections Commission (PEC), which was assigned to supervise the entire electoral process, surprised civil society groups early yesterday when it retracted an earlier decision to block local monitors from entering polling stations. As late as Tuesday night a ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court supported the ban. Rights groups had previously contested the commission's decision to ban local monitors before a lower administrative court, which on Saturday authorised them to go to polling stations on the grounds that their presence would guarantee "a fair and transparent vote" and that "local monitoring is outside the commission's mandate." The commission, however, defied the court ruling saying its decisions could not be overruled in court as stipulated in Article 76 of the constitution and that judicial and media monitoring would be enough to guarantee a fair vote. It remains unclear why the commission suddenly decided to allow local monitoring but three weeks of legal wrangling has opened a Pandora's box of questions about the legitimacy of the whole electoral process. Despite repeated calls from Washington, the government rejected foreign monitoring of the polls on the grounds that it would constitute interference in the country's local affairs. The government's hardline stand towards both local and foreign supervision fuelled fears it was up to a "massive fraud", probably repeats of irregularities and poll rigging which rights groups say were rife in previous polls and referendums. Hafez Abu Seada, chair of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) and coordinator of the Civil Coalition for Monitoring Elections (CCME), which involves 22 rights and civil society groups, said the commission's final decision "was probably meant to make the government appear neutral in front of the world though it actually impedes the monitoring process." "The attitude of the Presidential Elections Commission on elections monitoring raises doubts and piques suspicion," Abu Seada added. "[Elections monitoring] would help provide trust in the electoral process and confidence in the results." 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), was equally sceptical. "There is no reason why the government should not allow local observers unless it is up to something," he said matter-of-factly. "The ruling National Democratic Party is seizing authority by force. These elections cannot be legitimate." Rights groups told Al-Ahram Weekly that only a few judges had actually received the commission's last-minute decision and that most monitors were blocked from entering polling stations in cities across the country including Cairo, Aswan, Minya and Qena. Most observers thus had to settle for "exit polling as the second best option", depending instead on reports from on-site voters, media reporters and candidates' lawyers. Rights groups said some cooperative judges, however, allowed local monitors a brief presence in polling stations in accordance with a decision taken on Friday by the Judges Syndicate which saw local monitoring as necessary to guaranteeing transparency of the polls. Some observers managed to see how internationally compliant the voting process was while casting their own ballots. All local monitors followed similar plans to oversee the overall electoral process -- observing the voting itself, evaluating voter classifications, results and complaints, and providing a final detailed report. Monitors, for instance, observed if a judge was present at every ballot box, whether voters were asked to dip their fingers in phosphoric ink -- indicating they have voted -- and if balloting boxes were transparent. Outside observers also checked if security forces prohibited voters from casting their ballots and counted the number of voters in exiting polling stations to compare resultant figures with official ones. Initial reports revealed a generally quiet atmosphere. A strong police presence did not affect the balloting process. Observers, however, revealed some irregularities, including the use of wooden and thus non-transparent ballot boxes and a weakened solution of phosphoric ink. Some ink could reportedly be washed away, thus allowing the voter to vote again. The ruling NDP featured a high profile presence in most polling stations where, more often than not, a single judge was present in the company of 10 non-judicial figures -- probably pro-government civil servants -- according to Zarie. Zarie said he was banned from entering polling stations as a registered monitor and was only allowed to cast his ballot in the constituency where he belonged. He reported two incidents where NDP members engaged in minor altercations with rights activist Negad El-Boraai and opposition figure Ragab Hemeida. Zarie said he had received complaints from voters in villages who said they found other people had already cast ballots in their names. Until the Weekly went to print, local observers could not give an accurate count on voter turnout but said they expected poll rigging to occur later in the evening. Abu Seada noted that the government already abandoned neutrality when it bussed droves of civil servants into polling stations. Zarie said he saw "uneducated poor people using cards bearing [President] Mubarak's photo as balloting cards" and some eyewitnesses told the Weekly they saw members of the ruling NDP paying poor people to vote for its candidate. That President Hosni Mubarak would win the elections was widely considered a foregone conclusion but rights groups said it was the turnout of voters that the government was keen to keep under wraps. Observers say at least 50 per cent of all eligible voters (32 million Egyptians out of a 72 million population are eligible) should cast their ballots for the polls to claim popular legitimacy, but rights groups said previous polls usually witnessed a far less turnout, just 10 per cent of voters. 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 were allowed fair representation in the state-owned media. Zarie said that Tuesday's overturning by a high administrative court of a ruling allowing independent monitors to observe the polls, and the earlier expulsion of around 17,000 judges from electoral supervision, cast doubt over the legitimacy of the entire electoral process. "For any poll to be fair the government should take an unbiased stand and elections should be processed under full judicial supervision as well as local and foreign monitoring -- which is absolutely not the case," Zarie told the Weekly. "Local observers were in fact impeded from conducting an accurate assessment of the polls while only 5,000 judges were left to take charge of double that number of polling stations." Nasser Amin, of the Arab Centre for the Independence of the Judiciary, which yesterday fielded 300 trained lawyers to monitor the elections in 25 polling stations around Cairo, said, "the flawed amendment of Article 76 has undermined the whole democratic experiment" by placing too much power into the hands of a commission whose neutrality is already in question. The committee, according to the law, was formed by presidential decree and chaired by the minister of justice. Critics say that because the minister is a member of the government and the NDP, he is hardly a neutral figure. The commission, meanwhile, is assigned complete supervision over the whole electoral process and its decisions are immune from any court ruling. "Most of the commission's members went on summer vacation and left Mustafa Marie [the commission's chair] free to issue whatever decisions he liked," Amin said. Marie, Amin added, "made many wrong decisions and made problems with everybody, including judges, civil society and political parties." Now that no one can legally contest "those flawed decisions" before Egypt's court, Zarie said rights groups were left with no choice but to "take the matter to international courts and uncover irregularities to the world." A Tuesday report by the Cairo Centre for Human Rights -- a CCME member which covered state-owned and independent media, including six TV channels and 17 newspapers -- revealed clear media bias towards the ruling NDP candidate. Centre chair Bahieddin Hassan said TV coverage was "surprisingly better and fairer than the disastrous bias of the national press and independent channels towards the ruling party's candidate." The report noted that whereas President Mubarak's campaign took up 18-29 per cent of state media coverage, it unexpectedly cornered the market, from 41 to 69 per cent, on all media coverage in the independent channels Al-Mehwar and Dream respectively. The national press, the report said, dedicated up to two- thirds of its coverage to President Mubarak's campaign, as was the case with the government mouthpiece Al-Gumhuriya.
