Carlos Valenzuela, chief technical advisor to the UNDP in Egypt, talks to Abeya El-Bakry about the management of elections and the Arab Spring In an event designed to develop trust among stakeholders taking part in the country's elections, a UNDP forum was held recently in Cairo to share experiences about building trust in the electoral process. Egyptian officials shared their experiences in building trust in the presidential elections in the three-day event entitled International Standards for Electoral Management Bodies �ê" Global Comparative Experiences. Key stakeholders from Tunisia, Egypt and Libya attended sessions on independent and sustainable election management. The forum was also attended by representatives of governmental institutions, legislators, former and current commissioners of electoral management bodies, policy specialists, opinion leaders and civil society representatives from the three countries. Carlos Valenzuela, chief technical advisor to the UNDP and currently resident in Cairo, explained the aims behind the sessions. One of the issues in the Egyptian presidential elections has been impartiality, especially given the law to exclude the candidate from the former regime. How do you see this issue of the impartiality of the elections? That is the kind of question I would never answer, because it is not up to me to determine. There are five principles of good electoral administration: independence, which is to behave in an independent manner and one where there is no undue pressure; impartiality, which is to treat all the candidates in the same manner and apply the rules of the game in the same way while observing the electoral framework; transparency, which shows people that you are acting with impartiality; professionalism, which is necessary because you need to ensure that it is a well-oiled operation; and finally sustainability. One of the most important things about impartiality is that the law is applied to everybody in the same manner. The law is the law. There is nothing more I can say about exclusion or impartiality, aside from the fact that the electoral authorities have to follow the law. There may be other issues that are political in nature, but these are the kinds of things which we don't get involved in at the UNDP because they are a purely Egyptian affair. What we try to do is to support the building of the electoral administration in a more professional and transparent manner, so that people can understand what is going on. How well would you say the Egyptian system has been working so far? Our work here is not to judge but to support the process. I have worked in Tunisia and Egypt, and generally people in Egypt have trust in the process that they didn't have before, making the elections acceptable. In Tunisia, in the past they didn't trust the process, and this time round they felt it was a well-administered process and much better than in the past. Libya, Tunisia and Egypt are very different countries, but they are also neighbours sharing, in their very different ways, in the same political transitions. The way to go into a transition is through early parliamentary elections. This happened in Egypt and Tunisia, and now the Libyans are also preparing for these. While they are very different, and the processes in them are also very different, these countries do share certain things, one of which is to re-define the electoral administration model. In Egypt, judicial supervision has been stronger, and there have been moves to strengthen the Higher Elections Commission. In Tunisia, they went for a completely new electoral administration body, but now what both countries are looking at, and what Libya will be looking at soon, is how to re-define the electoral administration in order to find out what went well in these elections and what did not go quite so well. That was why we decided to organise the present forum �ê" to help, not to tell anybody what to do, but to bring as many different countries together as possible. This is what we are able to do as an agency of the United Nations. We have an international experience and perspective, and you can never tell one country to do this or to do that because certain decisions can only be taken by nationals, even though it helps to see how things are done in different places. Two weeks ago, we accompanied a delegation of Egyptian representatives from the authorities, civil society and the media, along with Tunisian and Libyan delegations, to Mexico because there are two things happening there. Firstly, Mexico is preparing for presidential elections, and secondly because Mexico has a very consolidated electoral administration, it could be good for the delegations to see how the elections there are going. In the forum in Cairo, there are delegates from many different countries �ê" Australia, India, South Africa, Costa Rica, Yemen and Jordan �ê" such that everybody can share experiences. It has been very successful because experience-sharing is a very good way of learning, and it is what we like to do in the UNDP because it is not prescriptive: we don't go and tell people what to do, but instead we support discussion. What do voters in Egypt need to learn about the electoral process? Everything, but not just in Egypt. There is a lot to learn everywhere in the world. People need to be informed so they can make their own choices, particularly in a country like Egypt. In Tunisia and Libya, where the experience in elections is not very strong, people did not participate, results were not always accepted, and voters needed to know what the changes were to the electoral system. It is a long-term process. Civil society has a role, but it is an ongoing and long-term process. At the moment, there are many changes and rumours associated with the elections and with the whole process, so people are unsure whether they know the basis on which to choose the right candidate. They don't know if they have the right criteria to make a selection, and they don't always know the issues concerning the constitution and parliament. Is this because of problems in the management of the elections? It is part of the electoral administration's responsibilities to inform voters of certain issues. There is information that people need to know concerning the elections, for example, the place and time to vote, whether they should use a voters' id or a national id card, what will happen to Egyptians abroad, etc. These are aspects of the electoral process. The rest is in the political arena. You have been an elections advisor in Iraq, the West Bank, Gaza, and other post-conflict areas. What major issues confronted you in these countries? In every single country, especially one coming out of a conflict or in a transition, the most important thing is trust. People need to trust the process. If you do not trust it, then you won't see it as legitimate, and when the results come out, you're not going to accept the results. Elections are a political race, so there are losers and there are winners. Everybody needs to accept the results, especially if you're a loser, and everybody needs to believe in the process. At every step in the electoral-management process, you have to think about trust. All the principles that we discussed have to be applied. You have to be professional. If things are done professionally, there is more trust. If you are more open, you will be more transparent and more people will understand that you are doing your job correctly, impartially, and independently. In all the countries mentioned, the big issue was about how to gain trust, but how you do that will be different in every country. What would give confidence in one country may be different in another country, which is why you cannot have a 'recipe' for each country. If we develop a good system in these elections will this serve as a model for those that follow? Transitions are always unique moments, because you're going from extraordinary situations to more ordinary situations. As long as they are elections in transitions, they are unique experiences though they can serve as the basis for lessons to be learned. This is not just the case in Egypt or Tunisia. It is the case all over the world: you're always thinking about how to improve and how to gain greater trust. In Egypt, you are coming up to the moment when the constitution will be changed, or it is going to be written, and the new electoral system will be a part of that. Is it possible to have elections without having a constitution? Yes, many countries have done that. In many cases, and the example of Tunisia is an important one, after the regime changed, the previous constitution was abolished, so there was no constitution. In order to draft a new constitution, there have to be elections to elect those who are going to draft it �ê" in Tunisia, these were the members of the constituent assembly. What they did in Tunisia was to pass a temporary elections law that would enable the process to take place.
