CAIRO: When the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces issued a statement rejecting international monitors for the upcoming elections last month, it lay down a challenge for Egyptian civil society.
With the possibility of international monitors dwindling, hundreds of local NGOs and civil groups are preparing to undertake the gargantuan task of ensuring the first free and fair Egyptian presidential and parliamentary elections in decades.
But looking to go at it alone — or with only indirect international support — local groups are facing an increasingly hostile political environment.
Monitoring the vote
Last month, the government delayed elections until later in the fall — saying it will start the election process in September rather than hold it then — which provided more time for political parties to prepare.
Citing concerns over “national sovereignty,” the government has been reluctant to welcome foreign organizations to observe the elections, diverging from its Tunisian counterpart that invited monitors from the European Union in February.
As a result, local election monitors in Egypt are uncertain what, if any, international support they will receive.
According to Malgorazata Wasilewska, the head of the Division of Democracy Support and Elections at the EU’s European External Action Service, an election observation mission would require an invitation three to four months in advance to fully prepare and begin monitoring campaigns.
But Wasilewska said the EU could also provide smaller-scale support, including “election expert missions,” as well as financial, preparatory, and technical support to civil society and domestic observation efforts.
The option of enlisting the help of regional organizations, in which Egypt is a member, in election monitoring is still, theoretically, on the table. Such organizations include the Arab League, the African Union and the United Nations.
Sherif Mahmoud, foreign relations officer for the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, said he expects only limited international support given the government’s recent stance. Instead, the task of ensuring free and fair elections has fallen upon the Egyptians.
The hefty task doesn’t just include monitoring the voting process in polling stations and the counting, but extends to months prior. It involves assessing candidate’s application, campaigning procedures and financing, media coverage, opportunities given to each candidate and voters’ lists to name a few.
Training and cooperation
According to current plans, Mahmoud said, foreign experts will help train 1,000 Egyptian monitors from EOHR and other local organizations.
EOHR will then work with a network of some 120 Egyptian groups across the nation to monitor campaigns and polling stations.
Mahmoud said that around 50 organizations will focus on the Cairo region, while most of the remaining groups will be based in Upper Egypt and the Delta.
Ideally, he said, monitors will be accompanied by some international observers. But the organizations are awaiting approval from the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity.
Other local organizations have forgone international support altogether. The One World Foundation for Development and Civil Society Care will team up with a network of 50 other local groups to mobilize around 20,000 activists to raise public awareness about the elections.
The network will also send out Egyptian-trained monitors to polling stations across 10 governorates.
Ayman Sorour, the project consultant for election monitoring at One World, said monitors will be equipped with digital camcorders or cell phone cameras to record at polling stations, drawing lessons from the January 25 Revolution when videos uploaded online helped expose widespread abuse.
Similar tactics were used by civil society and popular initiatives in previous elections, including the 2010 parliamentary elections, condemned for being rigged way before voters cast their ballots. Websites were created encouraging citizen journalists to contribute instant information about the voting on election day.
Sorour said that the NGOs are using only Egyptians in order to find the “balance” between observing the law — which discourages foreign involvement — and providing comprehensive election monitoring.
“Frankly speaking, we would like to see international monitors for this election,” he said, “We shouldn’t have something to hide.”
The Pressure Mounts
Days after SCAF publicly rejected foreign election monitors last month, a group of six Egyptian NGOs, including One World and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, co-signed a letter condemning the decision.
“The Organizations signing this statement are disillusioned by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces decision to ban international monitoring of the elections,” the letter states.
The authors demanded that SCAF stop interfering in the work of the Supreme Committee for Elections. Furthermore, they called on the latter committee to more clearly delineate the rules for both local and international election monitors.
The debate over foreign monitors has contributed to a widening rift between SCAF and Egyptian civil groups.
Shortly after SCAF announced its decision to reject foreign monitors, the cabinet opened an investigation into civil groups suspected of accepting funding from international sources without informing the government.
“This is usually what came out before any elections, with the same methods and the same way,” said Mohamed Zaree, the Egypt/Road Map project manager at CIHRS.
“First they are going to say, ‘we will not allow international observers, because this a violation of our sovereignty.’ And the next step is they are going to attack the civil society organizations—that they are receiving funds from external donors—to make obstacles for us,” Zaree says. “This is exactly what Mubarak did, in [elections in] 2005 and 2010.”
Zaree says CIHRS will be monitoring media coverage of parliamentary candidates leading up to the election. As a result, unlike other organizations that will be sending observers to the polling stations, it will not require accreditation for its members.
“Anyway, if they give us permission, we will monitor the elections. If they don’t allow it, we will also monitor the elections.”
The government must accredit all monitors—Egyptian or foreign—to allow them to be present in the polling stations.
“If the process is done properly, then the government will basically accredit all NGOs to send monitors,” said Mohamed Dahshan, a local journalist who has twice served as an election monitor in Sudan.
But the government could choose to withhold accreditation on concerns of foreign influence or other reasons.
In that case, Dahshan said, “It will end up being a couple of nice people going around in cars, randomly checking a couple of polling stations.”
Still Pushing
Dahshan remembered voting during the Constitutional Referendum in March, a vote so rushed that international observers were mostly absent and local monitors had little time to prepare.
“It doesn’t make me very optimistic,” he said.
An international presence, he continued, is a crucial component of ensuring legitimate democratic elections, and he lambasted SCAF’s decisions to bar international monitors.
“Part of it is misplaced nationalism,” he said, “The more plausible reason is they’re not planning on putting in the necessary effort into organizing these elections at the level that would be internationally acceptable.”
Back in July, Wasilewska suggested that Egypt hadn’t invited international monitors because of apprehension of an “unduly critical” report in the transition period, an understandable and common concern.
“There are often misunderstandings about the impact of criticism that comes out as a result of observation,” she said, noting that no country has had 100-percent seamless elections. “There is always room for improvement.”
According to Mahmoud from EOHR, several NGOs have petitioned the government to change its policy. “It’s still early to give you the final word,” he said.
Dahshan said that civil society must express a unified voice in support of foreign monitoring. “If local legal organizations and the revolutionary movements get their act together … we can make that one of our demands,” he said.
“If we make that one of our demands, then yes, it can be a possibility.”
