While citing plenty of problems, independent monitors still said the presidential polls were fair enough to be deemed legitimate. Gihan Shahine investigates Despite the long list of irregularities that monitors said marred last week's elections, human rights groups' reports were, on the whole, milder than expected. Most concluded that the amount of fraud in Egypt's first multi-candidate presidential elections was less than in previous polls -- and not enough to declare the vote illegitimate. Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) Chairman Hafez Abu Seada, the coordinator of the Civil Coalition for Monitoring Elections (CCME) -- an effort involving 22 civil society and rights groups -- said that only 15 per cent of the vote was rigged in favour of President Hosni Mubarak. He said the "few errors and violations" that took place on elections day did not actually affect the final results, which gave Mubarak 88 per cent of the vote. A report by the National Campaign for the Monitoring of Elections (NCME), which fielded monitors in 222 stations nationwide, described the presidential polls as "competitive", and said the results "generally reflected the voters' will". NCME coordinator Mohamed Zarie, the director of the Egyptian Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners, said that compared to "past polls, when open rigging, violence and police interference were the norm," the fact that only a fraction of votes were rigged "is considered a step forward". On the other hand, Zarie said, "we still need to have a political environment which allows for real competition on both the presidential and parliamentary ballots -- which is absolutely not the current case." Saadeddin Ibrahim, director of the Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Human Rights and the coordinator of the Independent Committee for Elections Monitoring (ICEM), which involves 10 non-governmental organisations, took a more hardline approach, slamming the elections as "neither fair nor free". Ibrahim's argument was that "despite the major irregularities marring the polls, President Mubarak was still elected by a fraction of eligible voters." Ibrahim told Al-Ahram Weekly that, "the very fact that most of the population stayed away from the ballots is an indictment of the current regime, and casts a deep shadow on the legitimacy of the elections." Rights groups gave varying accounts of the turnout, saying an estimated six to seven million people, out of Egypt's 32 million eligible registered voters, participated in last week's polls. Whereas the EOHR estimated the turnout as near the official 23 per cent of eligible voters, or a little bit less, the ICEM reported a lower figure of 18 per cent. While Mubarak's victory may have been a foregone conclusion even before the polls began, it was the turnout issue that was far more up in the air. Rights groups said the government seemed keen -- in the lead up to the vote -- to keep observers away from the polls for that precise reason, so that the voter turnout would remain under wraps. This might explain why most local observers were not actually allowed into polling stations, despite a surprise decision by the Presidential Elections Commission (PEC) on elections day, retracting an earlier ban on local monitoring. Rights groups told the Weekly that only a few judges had actually received the commission's last-minute decision, and that -- in fact -- most monitors were blocked from entering poll stations across the country, including Cairo, Aswan, Minya and Qena. An ICEM report said only 15 per cent of the coalition's 2,200 observers were allowed access into polling stations, and that many of them were only given access by cooperative judges who consider local monitoring as a necessary guarantee of the poll's transparency. The report said monitors were also blocked -- for alleged security concerns -- from entering Sinai, where at least 30,000 voters were expected to cast ballots. The ICEM revealed at least four incidents involving monitors being "beaten, apprehended and interrogated". Most of these cases took place in the south. According to the report, most observers had to settle for "exit polling as the second best option", thus depending on reports from on-site voters, media reporters and candidates' lawyers instead of the real thing. All the reports confirmed incidents involving people being bussed in, bribed, and sometimes intimidated, to vote for President Mubarak. The EOHR report said the government used public transport to bus droves of voters to polling stations where, although not registered, they were allowed to cast ballots anyway -- all clear violations of the poll rules. Observers said members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) distributed cards bearing Mubarak's picture, asking voters to refer to them while casting their ballots. The EOHR said in impoverished districts like Cairo's Bab Al-She'ria, some of these cards promised voters valuable gifts, including computers, trips to Mecca, and household goods. In other poor districts nationwide, people were reportedly given food, clothes and cash payments ranging between LE50 and LE150 to cast their ballots for the NDP candidate. The EOHR report also focussed on some voters being intimidated -- via threats of salary and pension cuts, and even jail time -- if they did not vote for Mubarak. This allegedly occurred in villages near Beni Sweif. The Arab Centre for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (ACIJLP), which fielded 300 monitors around Cairo, said several micro-bus drivers in Al-Maasara and Helwan were forced to vote for Mubarak or have their licences revoked. The ICEM reported similar incidents in Al-Sayeda Zeinab and a hospital in Heliopolis, where a man named Bahaa allegedly forced patients to vote for Mubarak, with the help of members of the hospital's nursing staff. The EOHR said Ghad and Wafd party representatives were "harassed and beaten" by members of the NDP in Rafah and Menoufiya. Almost all the groups, meanwhile, testified to the impartiality of security forces -- a far cry from previous polls where police would often prohibit certain voters from casting their ballots. Abu Seada told reporters that these types of "violations in the electoral process" were absent this time. That still did not mean voting was a completely smooth process. Complaints of chaotic voters' lists abounded, as did incidents involving voters not finding their names registered, and being forced to leave stations without casting their ballots. Observers from the ACIJLP and the ICEM said many stations opened more than an hour later than they were supposed to, thus causing many voters to leave without voting. Rights groups said many lists were rigged, and included names of deceased people. The NCME received complaints from voters in villages who said they found other people had already cast ballots in their names. Observers revealed other irregularities, including the use of wooden -- and thus non-transparent -- ballot boxes, as well as the absence, in many stations, of indelible phosphoric ink and curtains to guarantee confidentiality of voting. The ruling NDP's extremely high- profile presence at most polling stations was also a problem for many observers. Commentators like Dina Helal from the independent monitoring group Shayfeen.com, which fielded more than 400 volunteer observers nationwide, said that members of the NDP "undermined the democratic experience by committing many violations to serve personal interests". Other observers reported the presence of promotional material supporting the NDP candidate inside stations, where campaigners were seen wearing t-shirts with the president's picture on them. That said, Helal argued that many of the irregularities marring the polls were actually the result of "inefficiency and lack of experience", and that the polls proved "successful in a sense". For Helal, the fact that security forces did not interfere in the balloting process, and that the elections encouraged the political participation of a largely stagnant nation, were all indications of that success.
