Al-Ahram Weekly Issue No. 248 23 - 29 November 1995
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

Poll watch-dogs keep low profile

By Amira Howeidy

About 300 candidates have commissioned Egypt's first ever election-watch committee to act as their representative during the 29 November elections. The government had previously condemned the committee as unconstitutional and vowed that its members would be barred from the polling stations, but the candidates' commissioning has given committee members the right to observe the election process from inside the nation's polling stations, legal experts said.

"This will make it possible for us to be inside the polling stations to monitor all that is taking place from the inside," said Hafez Abu Se'eda, head of the fieldwork unit of the Egyptian Organisation of Human Rights (EOHR), one of five NGO's participating in the committee.

The committee, which includes more than 100 academics, human rights activists and former diplomats, had decided to maintain a low profile after it came under fire from Prime Minister Atef Sidki and Interior Minister Hassan El-Alfi, Sidki said two weeks ago that the government rejected "guardianship, from any person or any authority, of the elections". And El-Alfi maintained that the committee was using the human rights issue as a pretext to cast doubt on the integrity of the elections. Reports in the Arabic-language press said the cabinet had authorised the Interior Ministry to take legal action against the committee.

Although no action was actually taken against the committee, its spokesman, Saadeddin Ibrahim, said it was coming under government pressure to halt its activities. "This is why we have stopped issuing statements about the progress of the committee's work; in order not to provoke the government, which could shut down the committee altogether," Ibrahim said.

Officials have described the setting up of this committee as not only unprecedented, but also unconstitutional, on the grounds that the constitution provides the necessary guarantees for a free election, and these do not include the presence of observers. But argued Ibrahim; "The constitution does not prevent the presence of observers either. It is my right, for example, to say that the streets of Abbasiya are dirty compared to the streets of Zamalek. The committee works in a similar way - expressing views based on observation. We are simple observing. We are not breaking any laws."

The committee was formed at the end of October with the aim of monitoring the birth pangs of the new People's Assembly. The committee's work financed by an LE56,000 budget, said to be entirely donated by member organisations and individuals.

In the committee's preparatory meetings, differences had emerged among members on the scope of its task. Some insisted that the commission should supervise the elections inside polling and vote-counting stations, while others argued that it should confine itself to observation and documentation from the outside. However, this problem appeared to have been resolved when candidates came forward and commissioned the committee to act as their representative.

But it remains to be seen whether committee members will actually be allowed inside the polling stations. According to the election law, even if as many as 50 candidates are running in the same constituency, a maximum of six representatives will be allowed inside polling and vote-counting stations.

Most of the committee's field work has been assigned to the EOHR, which recruited 350 of its members to monitor 38 constituencies out of the nation's 222 constituencies. According to the EOHR's Abu Se'eda, the field work is being carried out in four stages.

The first is to monitor pre-election developments, such as campaigning, lawsuits field by candidates against each other or government departments, election-related violence and government action against some Islamist candidates, such as Mohamed Abdel-Qoddous and Seif El-Islam Hassasn El-Banna, both of whom were briefly detained and then released.

The second stage will be the monitoring of the balloting on 29 November, hopefully, Abu Se'eda said, from inside the polling stations. The third will cover the vote-counting and the fourth the re-run elections on 6 December.

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