While Egyptian civil society expects to play a major role in safeguarding parliamentary elections it is unclear how it will meet the challenges involved, reports Mohamed Abdel-Baky The task of the 20,000 local monitors supposed to observe Egypt's first parliamentary election since the fall of Hosni Mubarak is being hampered by a lack of resources and coordination. In recent months NGOs from across Egypt have formed seven coalitions to observe the poll, the majority funded by the EU and United States. The Egyptian Alliance for Monitoring the Elections (EAME) -- an initiative of Al-Andalus Institute for Tolerance Studies, the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights and the United Group Law Firm -- includes 127 local NGOs and hopes to operate in all governorates. "We have started training 1,500 observers who will supplement those who already have experience of monitoring the 2005 and 2010 parliamentary elections," says Director of Al-Andalus Institute Ahmed Samih. EAME plans to equip its observers with smart phones and cameras and hopes to set up its own server to process SMS messages, images and videos submitted by both its observers and members of the public. The Alliance's programme has been funded by a $360,000 USAID grant which covers both parliamentary and presidential polls and awareness campaigns covering political participation and constitutional rights. The Independent Coalition for Monitoring the Election (ICME) is an umbrella grouping of three organisations, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIHR), the Egyptian Association for Community Participation and the Nazra Institute for Feminist Studies. In cooperation with a network of local civil society groups, 3,000 observers will monitor the poll in 22 governorates. ICME, which has received 650,000 euros from the EU, will monitor the Shura Council elections in February and the presidential poll in addition to the People's Assembly ballot. "The coalition has three goals," says the CIHR's Bahieddin Hassan. "To monitor the election on the ground, from the casting of votes to the declaration of results, to monitor Egyptian media coverage of the campaigns and to assess the participation of women as both voters and candidates." ICME is already preparing a preliminary report on the registration of candidates which, says Hassan, was marred by irregularities and logistical failings on the part of the Supreme Elections Committee (SEC). Although it will depend mainly on its 3,000 observers, ICME is seeking to maximise its capacity by establishing a hotline, linked to its operation room, which citizens can use to report any violations they witness. The Monitor and Learn Campaign, financed to the tune of $400,000 by USAID, intends to focus outside the main urban centres, working in 18 governorates. "In addition to monitoring the poll we are seeking to raise awareness about the importance of this election and of political participation in general," said Mohamed Mohi, director of the campaign which has, in the last four months, trained thousands of monitors. The Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Development Studies has created its own network of local NGOs, the Independent Committee for Monitoring the Elections, which will operate in a limited number of governorates. Other smaller groupings include the Egyptian Election Network and Al-Naqib Campaign to Monitor the Election. While foreign funding for monitoring has increased slightly compared to previous elections, one American diplomat who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly said that the short time between the revolution and the election had prevented international organisations from pumping in as much money as they would have liked. The problem, he added, was compounded by the current Egyptian authorities' reluctance to see aid directed to democracy programmes. Yet without foreign aid there would be no funding available to civil groups seeking to monitor the voting process at the 60,000 polling stations that the government has announced will be in operation. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) agreed just months ago that civil observers could monitor the poll, mandating the SEC to oversee the NGOs involved. One of the SEC's first actions was to condition any monitoring on accreditation by the state appointed National Council for Human Rights. In doing so, says Hassan, "the SEC is adopting the same tactics used by the Mubarak regime." "They appear determined to place whatever obstacles they can in the way of independent monitors." The SEC, complains human rights activist Negad El-Borai, has already ignored thousands of requests from monitors seeking accreditation. "We will monitor the election with or without the permission," he says. "Doing so is no more than an exercise of our constitutional rights." All well as facing pressure from the SCAF and its government, civil society organisations are also hampered by their own lack of coordination. Eight separate coalitions -- including a total of 128 NGOs -- monitored the 2005 parliamentary elections. In the absence of coordination, concluded a study by the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, monitoring was chaotic, with "many NGOs covering the same constituencies while other constituencies saw no observers at all". Some activists are pinning their hopes for a free and fair election not on monitors but on the vigilance of the general public. In the 2010 elections videos and photographs taken by ordinary citizens, some of them government employees seconded to polling stations, were distributed across the Internet showing a host of violations, including the stuffing of ballot boxes and the intimidation of voters by security officials and hired thugs.
