A petition calling for the forthcoming parliamentary elections to be free and fair, signed by members of various political parties and human rights organisations has been sent to President Hosni Mubarak. They have asked the president to order that the elections be based on an unconditionally proportional list system, with votes to be tallied through digital ID cards and supervised solely by the Supreme Election Committee with a term of six years rather than three. They also called for the suspension of the 29-year-old Emergency Law during the elections, in preparation for abolishing it entirely at a later stage. Hafez Abu Seada, head of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, announced the formation of the Civil Election Supervision Coalition, consisting of more than 120 human rights organizations. “The coalition will meet this month to discuss its future plans,” he said. “I am saddened that we now have to request free and fair elections when Egypt was one of the first countries in the world to have a parliament, a constitution and political pluralism,” said former Tagammu Party Secretary-General, Hussein Abdel Raziq. Wafd Party advisor Ashraf Balbaa, for his part, said rigging elections in Egypt has become the norm, and called on all political forces to exert more pressure on the regime to meet popular demands. Muslim Brotherhood parliament bloc member Yousri Bayoumi said that judicial supervision of elections is the only guarantee for impartiality. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
