Electoral guarantees

By Salama A Salama

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The president has just introduced a major change in the way in which elections are to be conducted. And while change tends to be greeted with praise, it is wise to first examine its implications. The public, which has been effectively excluded from the political process for over half a century, deserves some insight into this U-turn in the country's political direction.

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: FULL COVERAGE

One issue that requires further examination concerns the eligibility of candidates. As things stand, a presidential candidate must be able to muster a certain number of supporters. I do not see why political party candidates should be exempted from this condition. The support of local and popular councils should not be used to replace this requirement.

The reason I am bringing this up is that most existing parties are not parties in any meaningful sense of the word, and our local and popular councils are hardly representative of the public. I imagine that a presidential candidate should have the backing of a sufficient number of signatories from syndicates, professional unions, civil society organisations, members of the People's Assembly and the Shura Council, as well as Egyptian citizens at large.

A second point concerns the supervision of elections. The last freely held elections in this country were in 1984, during Mubarak's first presidential term. The 1984 elections were hailed as fair by both the international media and observing organisations, something that has not happened since. The next presidential elections must be completely transparent if their fairness is not to be called into question.

Supervision of elections is not an easy task in a country where they have been so frequently accompanied by irregularities. A neutral and efficient mechanism must be in place to ensure the authenticity of the voters' lists and prevent the government from interfering in the course of the elections. It does not belittle us to ask civil society organisations and international bodies to help monitor the elections, for the latter would not be interfering in the electoral process but merely observing and reporting. Such a guarantee would reinforce public confidence and encourage others to participate.

It has been reported that the justice minister would head the higher elections committee. I do not see why this should be the case. The minister is part of the government and a member of the ruling party and as such is hardly suitable to referee an affair on which the future of both government and party depends. It is better for the person heading the elections committee to be an ordinary judge, preferably retired. The elections committee must be completely unbiased.

I cannot understand why the National Council for Human Rights has disassociated itself from the monitoring process. The council says that the law does not allow it to play such a role, which is ridiculous. If the council does not have a duty to monitor how citizens exercise their political rights, then who does? The least the council should do is form a committee to follow up, monitor and write a report about the elections rather than abandoning this task to other human rights groups.

Electoral fairness is a matter of practice not rhetoric and we have had little practice. We need all the help we can get. Perhaps the observers will have something good to say at last.