Boutros Ghali, chairman of the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), has confirmed that democracy is linked to human rights, adding: "No democracy without human rights, and vice versa." Elections are part of the democratic process, through which people can defend human rights. These remarks were made by Ghali during a workshop organized by the NCHR in cooperation with the Egyptian Institution for Training and Human Rights. The workshop aimed at discussing the electoral process guarantees. The process of defending democracy and human rights is ongoing. Guarantees for fair elections give voters more confidence in the elections' feasibility, reflect genuine exercise of the freedom of expression, give more credibility for elections' results, and create a positive climate supporting the right of participation in general. The NCHR makes great efforts in cooperation with all organizations and the Supreme Commission for Elections to offer the guarantees enshrined in the Constitution and the law, a demand approved by all people, as he put it. He reviewed the council's efforts in following and monitoring elections in 2005, 2007 and 2008. At the end of the workshop, the NCHR issued a statement stressing that the integrity of elections depends on the political will of the electoral process' all parties and elements. The statement stressed the importance of reconsidering the electoral rolls and establishment sub-headquarters for the Supreme Commission for Elections in all constituencies.
The participants reviewed the efforts made by the Interior Ministry to develop the electoral rolls. However, they called for preparing the electoral rolls according to the ID national number as this is the best way to prepare rolls with no mistakes.
They also called for increasing the outer space surrounding polling stations and establishing sub-headquarters for the Supreme Commission for Elections in all constituencies. These sub-headquarters, which will be chaired by a committee of the members of the judicial authorities, will receive and study complaints of electoral irregularities and file a memo to the Supreme Commission for Elections. The sub-headquarters will carry out this task from the start of the elections until announcing the result. Such a step aims to establish a new mechanism to receive and study complaints of the electoral process.
The workshop participants called for expanding the scope of Article 3/24 of the Act on the Exercise of Political Rights, which controls the presidency and the membership of polling stations' secretariats. This Article should be applied to personnel of the local bodies, professional and union associations, teaching staff of all public and private universities, and the state-owned educational institutions. The Article should force all bodies concerned to allow the NGOs observers to enter polling stations and commissions on counting votes and to attend the announcement of results.
There should be continued cooperation between the Supreme Commission for Elections and the NCHR in issuing permits for observers to supervise elections, in addition to in installing electronic boards in count votes' headquarters to announce the result of each ballot immediately after counting votes. Chairman of the general committee should announce the results respectively at the end of counting the votes.
On the other hand, the Faculty of Mass Communication, Cairo University, will hold its 15th international scientific conference next Tuesday under the title "Mass communication and reform...Reality and challenges." Ghali, former United Nations Secretary-General, will deliver a memorial lecture during the opening session of the two-day conference.
