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Egypt: Election Questions
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Nov 28, 2010 (101128)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
There will be little surprise in the results of Egypt's elections
today, as the ruling party has taken all the repressive steps
necessary to ensure that it will have no problem in winning.
But, says Egyptian human rights analyst Bahey Eldin Hassan, there
will be four significant battles to watch: the legitimacy battle,
the battle to monitor, the media battle, and the extent of
violence.
Opposition to the regime is widespread and growing, although its
expression at the polls will be limited. Judges, bloggers, Facebook
groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, and supporters of opposition figure
Mohamed ElBaradei, the former director of the International Atomic
Energy Commission all represent stirrings in Egyptian society that
will likely be significant for the future, despite their exclusion
from political power.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from the press release
and report by Human Rights Watch on elections in Egypt, describing
the array of repressive measures used by the government to ensure
a ruling party victory.
It also contains links to a set of recent commentaries with
analytical perspectives on aspects of the elections other than its
foregone conclusion. These include:
The Four Battles of Election Day, Bahey Eldin Hassan,
director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
November 28, 2010
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/opinion/4-battles-election-day
The Dynamics of Egypt's Elections, Mona El-Ghobashy
September 29, 2010
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero092910.html
Egypt's election: power, actors, and..."change," Tarek Osman
November 26, 2010
http://www.opendemocracy.net / direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/2dz9sef
Egyptian blogs: reporting the news unfit to print, Bijan Kafi
November 26. 2010
http://www.opendemocracy.net / direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/29b84zf
Behind Egypt's Deep Red Lines, Mariz Tadros
October 13, 2010
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero101310.html
Egypt: Trendsetter for Democracy in the Mideast?
Nadine Wahab, Communications Director, Rights Working Group
Nov. 26, 2010
http://tinyurl.com/3yjwn5g
Egypt's Pro-Women Election Turns Ugly, Sarah Topol
November 27, 2010
http://www.foreignpolicy.com / http://tinyurl.com/289q2h3
Three recent books with analysis on Egyptian politics and society:
Tarek Osman, Egypt on the Brink: From Nasser to Mubarak
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0300162758?tag=africafocus-20
Rahab El Mahdi and Philip Marfleets, eds., Egypt: The Moment of
Change
http://www.amazon.com/dp/184813021X?tag=africafocus-20
Bruce Rutherford, Egypt after Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam and
Democracy in the Arab World
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691136653?tag=africafocus-20
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Egypt, and additional
background links, see http://www.africafocus.org/country/egypt.php
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note++++++++++++++++++++
Mass Arrests, Intimidation, Campaign Restrictions Make Fair Outcome
Questionable
Human Rights Watch
[Excerpts: for full text see http://www.hrw.org/en/middle-eastn-africa/egypt]
November 24, 2010
(Cairo, November 24, 2010) - Egypt has carried out mass arbitrary
arrests, wholesale restrictions on public campaigning, and
widespread intimidation of opposition candidates and activists in
the weeks leading up to parliamentary elections on November 28,
2010, Human Rights Watch said today. In a report released today,
Human Rights Watch argues that the repression makes free and fair
elections unlikely.
The 24-page report, "Elections in Egypt, State of Permanent
Emergency Incompatible with Free and Fair Vote," documents the
vague and subjective criteria in Egypt's Political Parties Law that
allow the government and ruling party to impede formation of new
political parties. Egypt remains under an Emergency Law that since
1981 has given security officials free rein to prohibit or disperse
election-related rallies, demonstrations, and public meetings, and
to detain people indefinitely without charge.
For this election, unlike others over the last 10 years, the
government has drastically limited independent judicial
supervision, following 2007 constitutional amendments that further
eroded political rights. The government has rejected calls for
international observers, insisting that Egyptian civil society
organizations will ensure transparency. As of November 23, however,
the main coalitions of nongovernmental organizations have yet to
receive any of the 2,200 permits they have requested to monitor
voting and vote counting.
"The combination of restrictive laws, intimidation, and arbitrary
arrests is making it extremely difficult for citizens to choose
freely the people they want to represent them in parliament," said
Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human
Rights Watch. "Repression by the government makes free and fair
elections extremely unlikely this weekend."
Human Rights Watch is not monitoring the voting or counting process
in the Egyptian elections. As it has elsewhere, it is focusing on
documenting systematic violations of the right to freedom of
expression, assembly, and association - rights that are fundamental
to free and fair elections.
Mass Arrests of Opposition Activists, Disruption of Campaigns
Since the Muslim Brotherhood announced on October 9 that its
members would run for 30 percent of the seats in the People's
Assembly as independents, security officers have rounded up
hundreds of Brotherhood members, mostly supporters who were handing
out flyers or putting up posters for the candidates. On November
24, Abdelmoneim Maqsud, the group's chief lawyer, told Human Rights
Watch that security forces had so far arrested 1,306 Muslim
Brotherhood members, including five candidates, brought 702 before
prosecutors, releasing the rest and detained two under the
emergency law. The government contends that the group's activities
violate Egyptian laws prohibiting political activities with a
religious reference point.
Human Rights Watch interviewed separately 14 Muslim Brotherhood
supporters from one Alexandrian and three Cairo constituencies.
They gave consistent accounts of having been arrested after taking
part in traditional election campaign activities - participating in
a campaign tour, distributing flyers in support of a candidate, or
putting up campaign posters. Uniformed police, often accompanied by
plainclothes State Security officers, have blocked or dispersed
gatherings by Brotherhood candidates, sometimes using force to
break up marches and rallies. The intimidation has been especially
notable in Alexandria.
"Independent candidates have the same rights to campaign as those
of the ruling party," Stork said. "The timing of these arrests and
the blocking of campaign events make it clear that the purpose of
these arrests is to prevent the political opposition from
campaigning effectively."
Security forces have also targeted other political activists. In
Munufiyya, security officers arrested Khaled Adham, Mohamed Ashraf,
and Ahmed Gaber, three activists with the National Association for
Change, as they were collecting signatures for a petition in
support of a movement for political change led by Mohamed El
Baradei, who has led a coalition of activists demanding an end to
the state of emergency and legal reform. Authorities detained the
three men for two-and-a-half hours, then released them without
charge.
Under international law, freedom of expression and association can
be limited only on narrowly defined grounds of public order, and
the restriction must be proportionate to the need. A ban on an
organization solely because of the political positions it holds,
and the fact that it uses a religious framework or espouses
religious principles, is not a legitimate reason to limit freedom
of association and expression under international human rights law.
A government may legitimately ban a party that uses or promotes
violence, but the government's allegations that such an action is
needed must meet a high standard of factual proof. In addition,
authorities may arrest and detain individuals responsible for
specific criminal acts, but not for mere membership in, or support
for, a political organization that the government has decided to
outlaw.
Lack of Independent Supervision, Failure to Issue Monitoring
Permits for Civil Society Groups
Constitutional amendments in 2007 drastically reduced judicial
supervision of elections that the Constitution had previously
required. A 2000 Supreme Constitutional Court ruling had provided
for full judicial supervision of every polling place, but the 2007
amendment to article 88 reduced this to supervision by "general
committees" in which judicial presence is limited.
Although Egyptian officials say that Egyptian civil society groups
will monitor the parliamentary elections, a leaked report by the
quasi-official National Council for Human Rights on the June 1,
2010 Shura Council elections cast doubt on that contention. The
report criticized the High Elections Commission, which formally has
responsibility for running the elections, for refusing to issue
3,413 of the 4,821 monitoring permits requested by Egyptian civil
society organizations for the Shura Council elections.
The High Elections Commission (HEC) announced on November 22 that
it would issue permits for the parliamentary elections, and some
organizations received a small percentage of the permits they had
requested. But as of November 24, one of the two main coalitions,
which includes the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights and the
Centre for Trade Union and Workers Services, has not received a
response to its request for 1,113 monitoring permits. Another
coalition including the Egyptian Association for Community
Participation Enhancement, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights
Studies, and Nazra has received no response to its request for
1,116 permits. The commission also stipulated that the monitors'
access to polling sites would be subject to the permission of the
person in charge of each polling place and that photography was
prohibited.
"The Egyptian government has repeatedly rejected calls to allow
international observers in as interference, insisting instead that
Egyptian civil society will monitor," Stork said. "Yet four days
before the elections, 123 organizations in two of the main
monitoring coalitions have yet to receive a single one of the 2,229
permits they requested."
Failure to Carry out Court Orders to Reinstate Candidates
On November 16, an administrative court ordered the reinstatement
of dozens of candidates whose candidacies had been rejected by the
elections commission. On November 17, the commission said on its
web site that the decision should be carried out. ...
Ahmad Fawzy, from the Egyptian Association for Community
Participation Enhancement, told Human Rights Watch that the
ministry should implement these court orders immediately because
only an administrative court can order a stay, and appeals are
being filed before courts not competent to hear them. In his view
this rationale reflected an official strategy to delay
implementation.
Hafez Abu Saada, of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights,
told Human Rights Watch that, in all, 350 candidates had been
eliminated and reinstated by the court, but that he knew of only
one of them who had been given permission to run by the Interior
Ministry. ...
Elections in Egypt
State of Permanent Emergency Incompatible with Free and Fair Vote
November 23, 2010
[Brief excerpts only. For full text, including footnotes, see
http://www.hrw.org/en/middle-eastn-africa/egypt]
Introduction
...
The year 2010 could be key for assessing Egypt's ability to run
free and fair elections. On June 1, 2010, Egyptians cast votes for
two-thirds of the Consultative Council (Maglis al-Shura), the upper
house of parliament. On November 28 elections are scheduled for the
People's Assembly (Maglis al-Shaab), the lower house. As the
uncertain health of President Hosni Mubarak fuels intense
speculation about his successor, the November 2010 elections could
be an indicator of the country's preparedness for critical
presidential elections scheduled for 2011.
Much stands in the way of free and fair electoral participation.
Egypt remains under an Emergency Law that gives security officials
free reign to prohibit or disperse election-related rallies,
demonstrations, and public meetings, and also to detain people
indefinitely without charge. Throughout 2010 and especially in the
weeks leading up to the parliamentary elections, authorities have
used these powers to disrupt and prevent gatherings and arrest
individuals solely for exercising their rights to freedom of
association, assembly, and expression--freedoms that are essential
to free and fair elections.
The most recent prior People's Assembly elections in 2005 were
marred by fraud and violence but were strongly contested. Members
of the banned Muslim Brotherhood organization won 88 seats as
independents - some 60 percent of the seats they contested. The
presence of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated candidates sometimes
sparked more active debates in the Assembly, in which MPs called
ministers to account and raised specific human rights concerns.
However, the independent MPs have not been able to affect
legislation.
In 2005 President Hosni Mubarak promised to "enshrine the liberties
of the citizen and reinvigorate political parties," but a series of
constitutional amendments in 2007 and the renewal of the state of
emergency in 2008 and again in 2010 have further eroded political
rights.
Article 76 of the Constitution, as amended in 2005, allows multiple
presidential candidates, but sharply restricts who may run; a
candidate must be a leader of an officially recognized political
party that has existed for at least five years and has won at least
three percent of the seats in both the People's Assembly and the
Shura Council. Any independent candidate must secure the
endorsement of at least 250 elected members of the People's
Assembly, the Shura Council, and governorate-level councils, with
at least 65 of them members of the People's Assembly. The ruling
National Democratic Party's stranglehold on all of these bodies
makes an independent candidacy--such as that of former
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed El
Baradei--virtually impossible. El Baradei has attracted support
from across the political spectrum because he is not affiliated
with the NDP or any other party.
A substantial factor in El Baradei's popularity has been his calls
for an end to the state of emergency, for full judicial supervision
of the electoral process, for monitoring by independent Egyptian
and international civil society organizations, for equal access for
all candidates to the media, and for simplifying voting procedures
by allowing individuals to certify their eligibility through use of
the national identification card that every Egyptian must acquire
at age 16.
A new problem in 2010 is that unlike in the elections of the last
10 years, the government has drastically limited independent
judicial supervision of the polling, following a constitutional
amendment pushed through in 2007. Another new factor is the
recently established High Elections Commission (HEC), which issues
monitoring permits and appoints "general committees," comprising a
limited number of judges who are to oversee the polling. ...
One positive development has been Law 149 of 2009, which allocates
64 parliamentary seats to women, increasing the total number of
People's Assembly seats to 518. According to the Egyptian Centre
for Women's Rights, the quota has encouraged women's electoral
participation, with 1,046 women running for seats this year
compared to 121 in 2000 and 127 in 2005.
...
People's Assembly elections in particular have often involved
widespread violence on voting day. The 2005 parliamentary elections
saw serious violence at polling stations, which led to at least 12
deaths and hundreds of arrests of opposition activists and
journalists. Sharply reduced independent judicial supervision this
year makes independent monitoring of the upcoming elections more
crucial, but the government has rejected calls by Egyptians and
other governments for international observers. At this writing,
less than a week before the elections, Egyptian NGOs have yet to
receive monitoring permits from the Higher Elections Committee,
which issued only 1,400 out of 4,000 requested for the Shura
elections in June 2010.
...
I. Elections in a State of Emergency
Egypt has been governed under the Emergency Law (Law No. 162 of
1958) almost continuously since 1967 and without interruption since
Hosni Mubarak became president in October 1981. The government has
regularly renewed the law, most recently in May 2008 and May 2010,
each time for two additional years, despite President Mubarak's
public commitment in 2005 to allowing it to expire. The Emergency
Law gives security officials free reign to crack down on
demonstrations and public meetings and to detain people
indefinitely without charge.
Disruption of Demonstrations
In 2010 security officials have disrupted political rallies, public
protests, and efforts by members and supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood to compete in elections. Activists with the April 6
Youth Movement, named after a strike of workers and opposition
activists on that date in 2008, organized a demonstration on April
6, 2010, to call for an end to the state of emergency and amend the
constitution to allow for open and inclusive presidential
elections. Authorities refused them permission to demonstrate,
using their authority under the Emergency Law to ban all
demonstrations. ...
In June 2010 widespread demonstrations took place after police
officers brutally beat 28-year-old Khaled Said to death on an
Alexandria street. On June 20 security officers arrested at least
55 protesters in Cairo, detaining them for up to four hours before
releasing them. When protesters assembled at Bab al-Louk Square and
a group of around 100 of them walked from there through downtown
streets chanting slogans accusing the Ministry of Interior of
responsibility for Said's death, riot police and central security
officers intervened. Human Rights Watch observed security officials
beating, dispersing, and arresting scores of people, including
protesters, journalists, and bystanders. Security officials drove
the detainees around for hours and then released them on highways
outside of Cairo.
Media Crackdown
In the past six weeks authorities have clamped down on media
freedoms, one area where there had been measurable liberalization
in recent years. On October 3 Ibrahim Eissa, editor of the
independent daily Al Dustour and one of the government's most vocal
critics, warned that "the Egyptian regime cannot give up cheating
in elections, so the only solution for the authorities is to stop
any talk about rigging, rather than stopping the rigging itself...
So the result is the silencing of satellite channels ... and then
the turn of the newspapers will come." On October 5 the newspaper's
new owner, Al-Sayed Badawi, fired Eissa. Badawi heads a political
party, Al Wafd, which was then preparing to field candidates for
the parliamentary elections.
Talk shows on private satellite television channels hosted by
high-profile media personalities such as Eissa and Amr Adieb were
extremely popular in Egypt. In September 2010 On TV canceled
Eissa's talk show, Baladna, a move the Journalists Syndicate
criticized as "an organized attack on media freedom in Egypt,
especially in light of the approaching parliamentary elections."
...
On October 11 the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority
announced a new requirement for organizations that send SMS
messages to subscribers to secure prior permission from the
Ministry of Information and the Supreme Press Council. This
appeared to be directed at the Muslim Brotherhood as well as at
groups such as the April 6 Youth Movement, which use SMS messaging
to mobilize activists for demonstrations.
On October 13 the government issued regulations effectively
bringing all live broadcasts by private companies under control of
state television, and on November 1 issued directives requiring
prior permission for satellite television uplinks.
Arrests of Campaign Activists
Since March 2010 security officials have arrested scores of
activists affiliated with the National Association for Change, the
Campaign to Support [Mohamed] El Baradei, and the April 6 Youth
Movement. On April 2 state security officers arrested Ahmad Mehni,
publisher of El Baradei and the Dream of a Green Revolution, and
detained him for two days before releasing him without charge. Zyad
Elelaimy, a lawyer representing the Baradei campaign, told Human
Rights Watch that he had documented the arrest of at least 40
persons gathering signatures and providing other support for El
Baradei's campaign; authorities held them briefly and released them
without charge.
...
Judicial Supervision Curtailed
Perhaps the most controversial constitutional amendment introduced
in 2007 was to article 88, which drastically reduced judicial
supervision. Judges would no longer have a mandatory presence at
every polling station, but instead, a very small number of them
would have a role as part of "general committees" under the High
Elections Commission. Restoring full judicial supervision is a main
demand of opposition politicians and activists.
...
Civil Society Observation of Elections
A coalition of independent NGOs that observed the 2005 People's
Assembly elections found that "in addition to the violence and
arrests, the electoral process was marred by other serious and
widespread violations that contributed to the withering credibility
and integrity of the election. These violations include
vote-buying, voter intimidation, illegal campaigning,
ballot-stuffing, counting irregularities, and inaccuracies with
voter lists."
The Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement,
a human rights organization that specializes in election
monitoring, has observed parliamentary and municipal elections
since 2005. One of its lawyers, Ahmed Fawzy, told Human Rights
Watch that judges' supervision of polling stations during voting
and vote counting in the 2005 People's Assembly elections prevented
more extensive fraud.
...
In May 2010, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR)
brought a case before the administrative court against the High
Elections Commission for approving only 20 out of the 125 permits
the group requested to observe the 2010 Shura elections. On June 1
the court ruled in favor of the EOHR, ordering the HEC to issue the
permits.
On the day before the Shura elections took place, when it became
clear that the High Elections Commission would not issue any
last-minute permits, the Forum of Independent Human Rights
organizations, a coalition of independent human rights NGOs, issued
a statement:
The refusal of the High Elections Commission to allow human rights
groups to monitor the Shura Council elections indicates the
committee is not independent and is subject to the state security
apparatus that intervenes to ensure the election outcome favors the
ruling party.
In its leaked report on the Shura elections, the NCHR also
criticized the role of the High Elections Commission for refusing
to issue 3,413 of the 4,821 monitoring permits requested.
As of November 22, the coalition including the Egyptian
Organization for Human Rights has not received a response from the
HEC to its request for 1113 monitoring permits nor has the
coalition including the Egyptian Association for Community
Participation Enhancement received a response to its 1116 requested
permits. Repeated attempts by the organizations to contact the HEC
have failed.
...
VI. Looking Forward
On November 5, 2010, Egyptian minister of finance Yousef Boutros
Ghali published an op-ed in The Washington Post in which he argued
that critics of human rights abuses and the political process in
Egypt are ignoring the government's economic achievements. He also
pointed to the media, the Internet, and civil society in Egypt as
evidence of political openness.
Yet it is clear on the eve of the 2010 People's Assembly elections
that the government has no interest in opening up the political
arena in Egypt, even a crack, to allow for elections that might
eventually lead to a peaceful transition of power in Egypt. ...
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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