CAIRO: International supervision of the Egyptian elections, whether Parliamentary or presidential, has always been a key demand of opposition parties and human rights groups, but it has also raised differences of opinions and divisions between the main opposition parties as the idea has its supporters and detractors. The issue of international monitoring of elections has increased in recent days over the need for international organizations to oversee the upcoming elections in 2010 and 2011. The al-Wafd Party has rejected the notion of international monitors, especially over the Parliamentary elections that will be held next September, but other parties, notably the Nasserist Party has greatly supported the idea. Egypt's leftist Tagama'a Party has expressed its reservation on the idea, meaning there is no unified opposition. Hamdi Hassan , the media spokesman of the Parliamentary bloc of the Muslim Brotherhood told the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm that international supervision of the elections is “necessary, as a kind of pressure on the government to hold fair elections,” adding that it became a part of international culture to have monitors oversee voting. He said that “although we experienced having a fair election supervised by judges [in 2005], the political will was interfering in the end to get the elections against the will of the electorate.” He added that the Muslim Brotherhood had not yet agreed on the institutions that would oversee the elections, but welcomed the participation of NGOs, “despite the potential presence of some organizations that will be a puppet in the hands of the government because it is essentially an agent of the governments of countries that have close ties with the Egyptian regime.” Fouad Badrawi, deputy head of al-Wafd said that his party rejects international supervision of elections because “it gives some sort of coverage for the fraud and gives the integrity of the elections to regime.” He considered the monitoring as a form of “interference in the sovereignty of Egypt” and pointed out that the best solution is “the formation of a neutral government to conduct and supervise elections that would resign upon the completion of the elections.” Nabil Zaki, Assistant Secretary-General of Tagama'a, said the party is studying the subject of international monitoring and the possibility of supervision under the umbrella of the United Nations. He stressed that the party “refuses the supervision of organization that is known of receiving funds from unknown sources.” Zaki added that “if the international supervision is not real, then it has no value, because the government will use [it] to show off, despite the absence of fair elections.” He continued, arguing that this monitoring “will be through visiting polling stations so that it appears everything is intact, or that this control will make sure the voter lists are not cleansed and how much is the control of the money and bullying on the electoral process.” Ahmed Hassan, Secretary General of the Nasserist Party supported the demand of international watchdogs for the elections, particularly with the abolition of judicial supervision, adding that international supervision does not “mean interference in internal affairs.” His party will “reject the control of America and the West and the United Nations, which are all subject to the balance of international forces and there are human rights and civil society organizations that can monitor the elections because it deals with the state away from the control of [other] regimes.” Osama Ghazali Harb, leader of the Democratic Front Party says the integrity and credibility of the elections in Egypt “would not be achieved without international supervision” and added that there are “international human rights organizations … no one can doubt about their fairness and credibility. It is possible that the control would be by the United Nations, but if it is from civil society and NGOs, it would be so much better.” Mamdouh Kenawy, President of the Constitutional Party, said that international supervision of elections is a “need,” especially after the abolition of judicial supervision. “International control is not considered foreign interference in internal affairs. There are many Egyptians who participated in monitoring the elections of many countries.” BM
