CAIRO: According to a report issued Wednesday by the Egyptian Coalition for Election Observation, the Supreme Electoral Commission (SEC) did not posses the required tools to effectively supervise Egypt's first post-Mubarak elections. "The members of the SEC were only assigned their tasks for the duration of the elections and the security organization was affiliated to the interior ministry and the armed forces," said Ahmed Abdel Hafez, vice head of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), member of the coalition. Abdel Hafez added that the SEC only issued the policies that regulate the electoral process but could not practically apply the law or penalize those who committed violations during the electoral process. According to Ghada Shahbandar, board member of the EOHR, the SEC itself had committed the highest rate of violations. "The SEC was not ready to oversee the elections and we called upon it more than once to postpone the polls in light of clashes in Tahrir Square between protesters and security forces," she said. Shahbandar pointed out that although the SEC and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces insisted on holding the elections on time, head of the SEC, Councilor Abdel Moez Ibrahim, blamed the interior ministry for not performing its assigned tasks efficiently. "At the beginning of the first round, Ibrahim said that the interior ministry is to be blamed for not delivering the ballots or the boxes to the polling stations on time," she said. In the press conference held to announce the results of the elections' monitoring by the coalition, the activist criticized SEC's performance in delaying the opening of a number of polling stations to voters, doubling the voting process over two days instead of one without prior preparation and that the stations where the votes were counted were not suitable. "We tracked serious violations during the vote-counting process. Some judges had to use lighters to see the ballots they were counting," Shahbandar said. Although holding the vote over two days was a positive step, she said, it was decided abruptly. "At first, Ibrahim said that if anyone is skeptical about securing of ballot boxes overnight, they can guard them themselves. Later the same day, he said judges will go home and the army and police forces will secure the boxes," she said. The leaking of a large number of ballots during the counting and lack of respect for judicial rulings were also among the faults of SEC's supervision, she said. The administrative court had ruled that the elections and the run-offs in the first constituency of North Cairo should be canceled for a number of violations committed in the electoral process. The ruling was not implemented by SEC until it was upheld by a ruling from the Supreme Administrative Court. Other rulings were issued to stop the elections in Alexandria and Assiut but were not implemented. Shahbandar also criticized the campaigning done during elections, violating a 48-hour ban. "This is the candidates' fault but it was not punished the SEC according to the law," she added. The parties and individual candidates were also criticized by the coalition for campaigning in front of, sometimes inside, polling stations. "Most of the candidates exceeded the maximum limit of electoral spending on campaigning which is LE500,000," Shahbandar added. The report also claimed that bribes, either money or gifts, were used by a number of candidates, especially from Islamist parties, to encourage people to vote for them. Meanwhile, the speakers at the press conference praised the voters for their participation in the elections, but criticized them for their "short breath." "The voters stood in very long queues in the first day which unfortunately decreased in the second day and the two days of run-offs," Shahbandar said. Some voters also accepted bribes to vote for certain candidates who convinced them that they will serve them best, she said. Media coverage The elections' monitors also issued a report on the media coverage of the elections saying that although the media also acted as a monitor, not merely covered the elections, it was not ready for the coverage and was affected by the Tahrir clashes. Heba Aly, from the coalition, criticized the heads parties who own TV channels for using their media outlets to their benefit by advertising for their parties. "Al-Wafd Party excessively advertised on Al-Hayah Channel owned by Al-Sayed Al-Badawy, head of the party. The Free Egyptians Party and the Egyptian Bloc advertised on ONTV which is owned by founder Naguib Sawiris," Aly said. State TV, she added, harshly criticized the Islamist mainstream since the initial results showed they are taking the lead. As for the electronic media, its major blunder was that a number of news sites did not double check information before publishing news, the report said. The Egyptian Coalition for Electoral Observation includes 123 development and human rights' civil society organizations in 26 governorates countrywide. The coalition's main members include EOHR and the Andalus Center for Human Rights Studies.
