CAIRO: Egypt's Supreme Electoral Commission (SEC), which will monitor the upcoming parliamentary elections, is slated to issue the regulations for the political rights laws in the upcoming days. The regulations will include 38 articles that will guide the electoral process and give the power to the SEC to manage every stage, from preparing the voters' lists to the complaints related to the elections. Regulations will also include forming a committee headed by a member of the SEC, Judge Samir Abdel Moaty, to prepare the first database for voters. One of the articles will stipulate forming an electoral committee in every governorate to include members of the judiciary, authorizing them to supervise the presentations of the voters' database as well as inspecting voting stations and reviewing candidates' proxies inside the stations. Criterion for choosing the voting stations and the venues for counting the votes will also be detailed. “This is a guideline we have been long calling for, however, I hope to witness its real manifestation,” said Rashad Al-Bayoumi, deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood, told Daily News Egypt. The former regime forged parliamentary elections by issuing votes in the name of dead citizens, he said, and allowing some to vote more than once outside their electoral district. He hopes the political rights law will be enforced to prevent similar incidents from recurring. “Voters should be allowed to vote using their national IDs rather than voting cards,” Al-Bayoumi added. Fouad Badrawi, secretary general of Al-Wafd party, said he hopes the law “outlines mechanisms to guarantee the integrity of the coming parliamentary elections starting from the compilation of the voters' database to the announcement of the results.” The only way this can be ensured is by allowing judicial supervision of the entire electoral process, he added. Nabil Abdel Fattah, researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told DNE, “The law is expected to outline the procedural framework for the upcoming elections, in addition to determining the electoral districts in light of the latest demographic and geographic changes. “The new law is expected to delineate some modifications to the electoral system, all of which, however, are in line with the structure stipulated by the mixed electoral system, a system criticized by the coalition of Islamic groups headed by the Muslim Brotherhood,” he added. The political rights law stirred controversy a few months ago when army council General Mamdouh Shahin announced that international monitoring of the impending legislative elections will not be allowed because Egypt “doesn't accept guardianship from any country,” adding that this was an issue of national sovereignty. Furthermore, at a press conference announcing the final amendments to the Peoples' Assembly and Shoura Council law and the political rights law, Shahin said that local civil society organizations will be allowed to submit applications to the SEC to monitor the elections, as was the case during the referendum held last March.
