The role of the Higher Elections Commission in supervising November's parliamentary elections is itself coming under heavy scrutiny, Gamal Essam El-Din reports The last two months have witnessed an exchange of accusations between opposition forces and the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) over the role of the Higher Elections Commission (HEC) entrusted by the 1956 political rights law with supervising People's Assembly elections in their entirety. While the opposition appealed to President Hosni Mubarak to invoke his constitutional powers to amend the law and redefine the HEC's role to ensure the parliamentary polls are well monitored and supervised, the ruling NDP insisted that it is difficult to amend the law, and that the HEC is well able to ensure that integrity is the hallmark of the upcoming polls. According to the last amendments introduced to Article 88 of the constitution and the 1956 political rights law in 2007, the HEC, which includes senior judges and high-profile public figures noted for impartiality, is entrusted with monitoring parliamentary elections from beginning to end. According to Article 3 of the political rights law, the HEC should be composed of 11 members: seven judges and four public figures. "The seven judicial figures," adds Article 3, "must be a mix of four current senior judges and three former senior members of judicial authorities." The four current senior judges, indicates Article 3, should include the chairman of the Cairo Court of Appeals as the head of the HEC, the chairman of the Alexandria Court of Appeals, a deputy of the Court of Cassation and a deputy of the State Council. Article 3 of the 1956 political rights law also states that the People's Assembly and Shura Council are entrusted with selecting the HEC's 11 members. "These members will be selected from a list of proposed names by the People's Assembly and Shura Council's general commissions, and the final list of the selected HEC members should be approved by the two houses in a plenary session," reads the article, adding that "once the selection is approved, the final list of the HEC's members must be sent to President of the Republic, Minister of Justice, the Higher Judicial Council, and chairman of State Council. HEC members should take an oath of loyalty before the HEC's chairman, repeating the words 'I swear with Great God that I perform my duties with complete sincerity, integrity, impartiality and that I respect the law and the constitution.'" Article 3 states that an independent budget, forming part of the general state budget, should be allocated to the HEC to exercise its role effectively and with efficiency. Article 3 also states that the "HEC's four current senior judges must remain members of the HEC as long as they have not reached the age of retirement, while membership of the HEC's three former senior judges and public figures must be restricted to three years only." The 1956 political rights law entrusted the HEC with 16 roles and powers, on top of which are exercising full control of elections, regulating their performance and ensuring that they are well supervised and monitored by one or two senior judges. The HEC is also entrusted with selecting polling and vote-counting stations, preparing voter lists, regulating and supervising election campaigns in a way that should uphold the ban on raising religious and racial slogans and symbols. Besides, all complaints and appeals filed on the election process or against the results must be exclusively verified and addressed by the HEC. Other HEC roles include regulating the participation of Egyptian civil society organisations and local and foreign media in monitoring and covering the elections. "A major job for the HEC is to make sure that all parties, including candidates, civil society organisations and the media, observe the Egyptian code of ethics governing the polls," reads Article 3. Meanwhile, HEC chairmen have changed three times in the last three months, largely due to the fact that all reached the age of retirement. These are Intessar Nessim, Borhan Amrallah and Mahmoud Moftah. The latter two reached the age of retirement in September. Judge El-Sayed Abdel-Aziz Omar, who will reach the age of retirement in the middle of September 2011, was made chairman of Cairo's Court of Appeals and chairman of the HEC at the beginning of October. In spite of the sweeping powers granted by the 1956 political rights law, the opposition remains unsatisfied. According to El-Sayed El-Badawi, chairman of the Wafd Party, the HEC should be headed by the chairman of the Court of Cassation, the highest judicial authority in Egypt, rather than the chairman of Cairo's Court of Appeals , as currently stated by the 1956 law. El-Badawi believes that the two houses of parliament -- the People's Assembly and Shura Council -- should not be the ones entrusted with selecting HEC members. "We do not know on what basis and grounds the general committees of the two houses are entrusted with selecting HEC members," said El-Badawi, bearing in mind that, "the membership of these general committees is dominated by ruling NDP officials in the People's Assembly and Shura Council." El-Badawi demands that all HEC members be senior judges of the Court of Cassation. "This is to ensure that neither the ruling NDP nor the opposition has a hand in selecting members of the HEC." El-Badawi added that, "opposition forces agree that all 11 members of the HEC should belong to the Court of Cassation." El-Badawi, however, does not believe that putting the HEC under the full supervision of the Court of Cassation is enough to ensure the integrity of elections. "We believe that the principle of 'A judge for every ballot box,' which was implemented during the 2000 and 2005 elections, must be reinstated again," said El-Badawi, adding that "this is a major guarantee for election integrity and we urged President Hosni Mubarak to amend the 1956 law to implement this principle." El-Badawi also believes that the roles of the HEC should include exercising full control over the police on elections day. "The 1956 law is lacking in this guarantee, and we demand that a special force of policemen for safeguarding the polls be formed under the purview of the HEC and take orders only from the HEC chairman, rather than from the interior minister, and that the number of these special forces should be equal to the number of polling stations." The Coalition of Egyptian Opposition Parties (CEOP) -- which includes the Wafd, the Tagammu Party and the Nasserist Party -- stepped up its attacks on the HEC recently. They accused the HEC of acting like a secret organisation and that in the absence of any way of contacting it they were forced to publish an open letter to the body. El-Badawi said: "Although the polls are on 28 November, the HEC has taken no action at all to ensure that they are fair." Rifaat El-Said, leader of the Tagammu Party, joined forces with El-Badawi, adding that, "the HEC might as well be a secret organisation. Nobody knows where it is located and if you want to contact it no one can give you an address or a phone number, a fax or an e-mail." In response, the HEC issued a press release saying it met on 27 September and was working "day and night, without media noise or fuss, to ensure that the vote runs smoothly". According to the statement, "the HEC has already selected judicial officials to supervise the polls in each of Egypt's 29 governorates and to act as a channel between candidates and voters on the one side, and the HEC on the other." "Rules regulating the role of civil society organisations in monitoring the vote and vote-counting operations," it added, "has already been prepared." "A pamphlet containing guidelines about the upcoming polls will be sent to all political parties, press organisations, professional syndicates, universities and interested civil society organisations." The HEC also held two meetings, on 5 and 10 October, asking provincial governors to abide by the rules regulating election campaigns. The HEC also asked Minister of Social Solidarity Ali Meselhi to send it a list of licensed civil society organisations interested in monitoring the upcoming polls. It also ordered that the ceiling of spending on election campaigning should not exceed LE200,000 in the first round and LE100,000 in the second round run-off. Mohamed Kamal, chairman of the NDP's Indoctrination Committee, said that the NDP fully agrees with the opposition that the HEC should begin work early on the guidelines necessary to ensure the polls run smoothly. "But the NDP," added Kamal "does not agree that the 1956 law be amended to change the makeup of the HEC." He further said "the NDP believes that as long as the HEC is put under the direct purview of judges -- no matter if the judges belong to the Court of Cassation or another court -- it is a guarantee good enough to ensure impartiality and integrity."
