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Civil Society Election Monitoring Coalition requests meeting with official authorities and makes public its founding charter
9/6/2005
The Civil Society Election Monitoring Coalition has requested a meeting with official authorities concerned with overseeing elections in Egypt during which it will request that it be allowed to monitor the coming presidential and parliamentary elections. Hafez Abu Seada, Secretary General of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) yesterday announced during a meeting held in EOHR headquarters that Coalition members have also decided to hold meetings with the presidents of the People's Assembly, Shura Council and National Council for Human Rights in order to inform them of the Coalition's objectives and tasks and the methods it will use to strengthen the process of democratic development and encourage political participation.
Coalition members called on human rights NGOs throughout Egypt to join the Coalition and participate in election monitoring in order to ensure the probity of the coming presidential and parliamentary elections. They also agreed on the formation of a secretariat, specialised committees and a consultative body composed of public figures known for their probity, objectivity and experience in election monitoring. It was decided that the formation of the secretariat, committees and consultative body will be discussed during the Coalition's next meeting this week.
The Coalition's members, NGOs and civil society groups, reaffirmed the importance of preparing a document containing unified guidelines in conformity with international standards for use by Coalition members. They also called for judicial supervision of the elections and demanded that security bodies, the judiciary and the media maintain a neutral role during election campaigning, the announcement of the final results and even after this, calling on all governmental bodies, political parties, election candidates and the media to cooperate with the Coalition in order to facilitate its task and ensure a free and fair election.
As for the Coalition's founding charter - agreed upon by Coalition members - it was made clear that the Charter would contain a definition of the Election Observatory and describe its financing, objectives, tasks and the rules governing it. They pointed out the Coalition's members are made up of Egyptian human rights NGOs all of which are involved in one or more aspect of the election process; some are concerned with studying the legislative and political landscape, the participation and role of women in the elections or the role of the media while others are concerned with the election process as a whole and its results in order to present statistical analyses of it.
Still others are concerned with legal and other aspects governing the probity and transparency of governmental measures, selection and nomination procedures and the freedom afforded to voters and candidates. Other groups study ways of addressing public opinion. The Coalition's role will be to coordinate between these various groups and associations in order to guarantee the probity of the coming presidential, parliamentary and local elections.
With regard to funding, Coalition members confirmed that as a coordination body it will not receive funds for itself but, rather, will accept contributions from member organisations dedicated to its administrative tasks and periodic reports. Coalition member bodies themselves are independent in what concerns sources of funding.
The Coalition identified its objectives as the achievement of an independent, neutral and objective evaluation of the electoral process, encouraging participation in order to build voter trust in the electoral process, ensuring the integrity of the electoral process and contributing to the improvement and development of future elections through studies which identify errors about elections which will take place this year.
Coalition members agreed that four main paths would be followed to realise the Coalition's objectives: evaluation of the period preceding the elections and election campaigns, monitoring and evaluation of voting and the sorting of votes, evaluation of the announcement of final results and appeals and participation in the development of political participation in order to strengthen democratic development.
During the first three stages members of the Observatory will evaluate the political and legislative landscape in which elections take place and monitor the period preceding elections (monitoring of financial contributions and their provenance, the scale of election campaigns and spending on them, illegal and immoral electioneering, violations committed by the police and administrative bodies - especially with regard to propaganda, licences for conferences and accreditation of supporters and the extent to which the media is non-partisan).
It will also follow and monitor the election process, receive complaints connected with the election process (election propaganda, selection, sorting of votes and announcement of final results), provide assistance and legal support to victims of human rights violations which occur during the election process, widely organise media campaigns, seminars and workshops to raise awareness, educate members of the public and encourage them to take part in the election process by informing them of all the necessary details surrounding registration and nomination. A report will be issued after each stage of the election campaign, a number of periodic bulletins released during the course of the elections and training seminars organised for lawyers, journalists and members of the media amongst others on election monitoring tools and how to prepare reports on elections.
The fourth stage of the elections will encompass studies and analysis of the election results which will be presented to public opinion. The study will comprise the findings of Coalition members after they have been edited by the Coalition secretariat.
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