Egypt Rejects International Election Observers, Domestic Monitors Frustrated

22 November 2010

Once they cast their ballots, voters in Egypt dip their fingers in ink to indicate that they have voted (file photo)

During voting for the Shura Council, Egypt's upper house of Parliament, in June, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights was allowed to accredit monitors. But as the group's secretary general, Hafez Abu Saada, recently explained, it was an exercise in futility.

"We asked for 150 badges for our observers. They gave us 20, and the 20 should observe the elections in a governorate where there is no election in it. So, it was a joke."

Activists claims election process rife with problems

Abu Saada is among the most prominent members of Egypt's struggling civil society movement, trying to monitor a process that independent and opposition forces contend is riddled with corruption, intimidation and fraud.

The accusations include stuffing of ballot boxes, vote rigging, using outdated voter rolls, including names of people long since dead. He also says Egypt's oversight committee fails to include members who are fully independent of the government.

Others argue that harassment ranges from the government not giving aspiring candidates the documents needed to prove their eligibility to physical intimidation of candidates and their supporters. The Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned as a political party, but which fields candidates as independents, reports that hundreds of its campaigners were arrested recently, with several wounded in skirmishes with police.