The previous report of the Independent Coalition for Elections Observation noticed how the candidacy registration stage of the 2010 parliamentary election was dominated by the security directorates. However, as we entered the final stages, Interior Ministry’s domination of the whole electoral process has become as clear as day, while the role of the High Elections Commission (HEC) has varied between timid silence and speaking on behalf of the Interior Ministry.
After the HEC announced that it will implement all Administrative Court orders to reinstate candidates rejected by the security directorates, it had to retreat before the Interior Ministry’s insistence to not implement court orders. As a result, the Supreme Administrative Court passed a historical sentence on 25 November ordering the HEC to implement these court orders, considering appeals by the Ministry of Interior to be legally void. This court order is a blatant condemnation to the HEC especially that it called upon it to uphold its independence, maintain its neutrality, and respect the law and the constitution, or else it would be an obstacle to the implementation of court orders.
This historical court order condemning the main authorities administering the elections, several administrative court orders annulling elections in 24 electoral districts in a number of governorates – which the executive authority is delaying their implementation – and the administrative and security interventions in the electoral process, are the three developments threatening to nullify the elections.
On the other hand, the authorities’ position politically rejecting international monitoring and practically rejecting national monitoring through national civil society organizations, confirms the lack of political will to hold free and fair elections. The HEC had refused to allow a number of human rights organizations, including the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement – a member of the Independent Coalition for Elections Observation – to monitor the elections. The remaining organizations received only 10% of the permits they had asked for.
It is worth noting that it was the Security’s decision to exclude these organizations and thousands of other monitors from other organizations. Police officers stationed at the HEC’s headquarters informed the relevant NGOs with the decision and confirmed that this was for security reasons. This came to only confirm the extent to which the Interior Ministry is controlling the whole electoral process and that the HEC’s presence is only decorative and for a main purpose, which is to announce the results of a process that is in practice administered by the Interior Ministry.
Women running for regular and quota seats
The administrative authority did not implement court orders modifying the status of women candidates. In addition a number of women candidates withdrew, which provided a larger opportunity for NDP women candidates to win a majority of the quota seats.
As a result of the limited campaigning period and the large size of quota electoral districts, women candidates, especially those running within the quota system, have resorted to different methods of campaigning, such as using new media and setting profiles on social network sites. Some have allied with candidates of regular seats. Women candidates resorted to women in their campaigns as leaders or with secondary roles. In addition a number of opposition women candidates and their supporters (running for both regular and quota seats) have faced violations.
A gender analysis of some of the campaigning programs of women candidates showed that many of these programs rejected the rights won by the feminist movement. Generally, the number of electoral programs supportive of women’s rights is very low.
According to these indicators, it is clear that the quota system, until now, has not benefited women’s right and that the only benefactor is the ruling NDP.
Media and Elections: Conclusive bias towards the NDP and a Commission to terrorize media
Even though press and TV interest in elections has increased in the second stage, still it is much less than during the 2005 parliamentary elections. This seems to be the direct result of the official tendency of the authorities to keep the public’s interest in elections and politics at the lowest level possible. This finding is also consistent with the aggressive attack concerted by the authorities since the beginnings of October against free media creating a climate of fear, which we referred to in the report of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS).
This official stance to limit the public’s interest in elections is shown in the following observations:
1. The limited time given daily on TV for Elections (2.5 hours distributed between 8 channels)
2. The Parliamentary Channel was not broadcast even though it played a critical role in 2005 in raising awareness of citizens of partisan and independent candidates
3. Governmental TV channels were the least channels broadcasting news on elections in comparison to private channels. The state owned Nile News Channel, which was meant to be the largest channel covering the elections, had the least coverage
4. The limited time that this channel provided was broadcast out of the PrimeTime
5. The Macarthyan role played by the commission formed by the Minister of Information to pursue any critical handling of the NDP in private channels. It considered, without any legal foundation, that the way in which one of the famous Talk Shows criticized the final NDP candidates list as a banned intervention in the internal affairs of the party.
6. Large time periods were given to women’s quota at the cost of other important issues due to the fact that it is less politically controversial.
The most prominent conclusions of the report on media coverage of the electoral process are:
1. The report notices that only one private TV channel, ONTV, has provided a quarter of the time period given by all TV channels for elections. In addition, this channel was much more varied and balanced in its coverage of political parties. As for newspapers, Shorouk followed by Al Masry Al Youm had the most varied and balanced coverage.
2. The Muslim Brotherhood was given marginal coverage (0.5%) in CH1 and CH2 and most of it was negative.
3. The bias of state owned channels and newspapers towards the NDP were blatant despite the fact that these are media outlets funded by public funds. CH1 provided 72% of its electoral coverage to the NDP, while CH2 gave 78%. Al-Akhbar newspaper gave 75%, Gomhouriya 71% and Ahram 56%. Most of this space was positive in its coverage of NDP news and the positive aspect of it varied between 94% and 99.4%. In contrast, the critical coverage of NDP in all newspaper has seen a retreat from 64% in the initial stage to 55%.
4. Governmental newspapers were relatively interested in the reports of some of the reports published by civil society organizations regarding elections. However most of the interest was regarding reports that did not criticize governmental bodies responsible for the electoral process and which focused mainly on criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood. At the same time, those calling for boycotting the elections were not given a chance in media to explain their stance and presenting their reasons to the public opinion.
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