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Electoral reform…visions and tools. EOHR seminar convened on the 7th May 2005
8/5/ 2005
Mohamed Fayeq, Secretary General of the Arab Organization for Human Rights confirmed that political reform is meaningless as long as it is not accompanied by free elections which provide the people with a genuine opportunity to choose their representatives. His remarks were made during the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights' (EOHR) seminar Electoral reform…visions and tools.
Fayeq called for judicial supervision of the elections in all its stages, neutrality of executive bodies, provision of an environment necessary to ensure that the elections run smoothly, cancellation of the state of emergency and amendment of the Political Parties Law and lifting of the restrictions placed on political party activity.
Fayeq expressed his hope that groups will be able to work with President Mubarak's article 76 reform initiative freely and that the initiative will not be stripped of its content, emphasising the importance of the government taking into account the opinion of political parties and civil society groups on article 76.
Hafez Abu Seada, EOHR Secretary General stated that there exists several electoral issues in need of reform such as the electoral register which is filled with names repeated more than once, names of deceased persons, emigrants and army conscripts etc as well as frequent mistakes in the spelling of names. This calls for the sifting of the register of these mistakes by a judicial supervision committee in order that one can talk about free, fair elections which express the will of the people, which improve citizens' confidence in the electoral process and which encourage them to take part in it.
Abu Seada called for effective judicial supervision of the elections through the creation of an independent judicial body responsible for supervision of all stages of both the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. He also demanded amendment of Law 73 on the Exercise of Political Rights [1956].
Ali Eddin Helal, former Minister of Youth and who currently holds the political and cultural training portfolio within the National Democratic Party (NDP) affirmed that his party leans towards the mixed voting system employed in Germany. He explained that this system combines the advantages of the individual candidate system with proportional representation with the result that 50% of seats are filled by individual candidates and the other 50% by party elements. Helal pointed out that the first past the post system has the fundamental flaw that it is dominated by tribal loyalties without an election manifesto and marginalises groups such as women, Copts and young people. Similarly, it also has the problem that it leads to disreputable individuals nominating themselves and leads to the spread of bullying and violence. It also does not realise an increase in political participation which leads to the appearance of organised minorities who use an MP to realise their aims. Helal emphasised that political party reform must precede electoral reform.
Mahmoud Abaza, deputy leader of the Wafd political party said that the problem is not related to the type of electoral system employed, whether it be the first past the post or list system, but, rather, is connected with the nature of the political regime which is decided by the will of the leader rather than the wishes of the people. He pointed out that the leader's "guardianship" of the people can take many forms, such as the proposal put forward for amendment of article 76 which Abaza described as worse than the referendum system because candidates must secure the backing of 300 MPs rendering it an indirect ballot. He demanded that the President relinquish his guardianship of the people in order that the electoral system be an expression of the people's will.
Abaza confirmed that the Wafd party supports the list system on condition that independent candidates are allowed to form their own lists.
Hussein Abdel Razeq, Secretary General of the Tagammua political party, stated that his party supports the proportional list system and said that political party life in Egypt suffers from the fractionalisation of political parties and domination by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). He called for the separation of the state and the presidency from the NDP.
He added that election propaganda in government media is insufficient given that the NDP controls the media and that public money is used to fund NDP propaganda and local projects in targeted areas before the elections aimed at garnering support for NDP candidates. This is in addition to the use of religion by candidates from Islamist currents against Coptic and left wing candidates.
Ali Abdel Fattah endorsed the list system and linked it with the existence of a sound party political party life which allows currents with roots in society to form political parties. Commenting on the article 76 amendment, Abdel Fattah called for the people to be returned once more to the equation by presidential candidates relying on the collection of signatures - decisive evidence of the strength of these currents.
Mohamed al Sayyed Said, deputy director of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies stated that a true democratic system must be established before thought is given to electoral reform. He expressed regret that we are not governed by the rule of law, stating that human rights violations are no more than contempt for the law.
Said stated that the People's Assembly is in the process of accepting draft legislation proposals and that it will complete this in the coming days.
Taha Abdel Aleem, former head of the Public Information Organisation said that democracy cannot be realised in one step, but, rather is brought about gradually. He added that the transfer of power is not gift, and called on political parties to ensure internal balance and democracy reflected in their participation in political life.
Gamal Zahran, professor of political science in the Suez Canal University called for efforts to combat corruption at all stages of the electoral process in order to ensure electoral probity. He pointed out that electoral probity originates with corruption of the electoral register, especially with regard to women's names. He also said that wealthy individuals use their wealth to buy support without supervision by officials which allows repetition of names. He called for the cancellation of the current electoral register and the preparation of a new one based on the information given in national ID number forms.
Adel Eid, a member of the People's Assembly called for a complete end to Interior Ministry control of the electoral process and the creation of a new law governing the exercise of political rights to replace existing legislation which was created in 1956 in the era of a single party regime. He affirmed the necessity of the creation of an election supervisory committee made up exclusively of senior judges from the Cassation, State Council and Supreme Constitutional Courts who would be chosen by the courts' plenary assemblies without interference by the Justice Ministry. Neither members of the Public Prosecution Office nor members of the judiciary in administrative positions should be allowed to join this committee.
Lawyer Hesham al Bastawissy demanded that the head of the Cassation Court be made responsible for supervision of the elections through the formation of an independent and impartial judicial committee. He reiterated the necessity of preventing electoral crimes to occur with the course of time.
Cassation Court lawyer Abdallah Khalil affirmed the importance of training the judiciary and the judicial body in order that they can properly supervise the elections, stating that their experience does not equip them to undertake such a task which requires that they consult experts and members of the media in order to guarantee neutrality, to ensure that all candidates are given an opportunity and that auditors can monitor spending on elections.
Conclusions and recommendations
Participants in the Electoral reform…visions and tools made the following recommendations at the close of its proceedings;
1. A proportional list voting system must be employed because it preserves the voting bloc and improves the role of political parties while the first past the post system wastes 49% of votes in the interests of the candidate who wins 51% of votes. The shift to a proportional list system may require constitutional amendment in order to remedy constitutional flaws which ruined previous experiments with proportional representation.
2. A new law on the exercise of political rights must be drawn up to replace the current Law 73 [1956] in view of the changes which have taken place since this legislation was passed. Law 73 was issued in 1956 during the era of a one-party regime which dominated political life. The law suffers from the following flaws:
- Under the law the executive authority enjoys complete domination of all stages of the election process. Preparation of the electoral register takes place under the auspices and supervision of the Interior Ministry. The executive authority also controls all stages of the nomination process, election propaganda, sets the day of the election, polling stations and demarcates constituencies.
- Two copies of the election results are produced, one of which is sent together with voting or referendum papers while the other is kept in the security division headquarters. The course of the election process is therefore in the hands of the executive which can announce whatever result it wishes without being bound by the real election result.
- Article 2 of Law 73 as amended by Law 23 [1972] added new categories of individuals barred from exercising their political rights. Anyone whose assets have been placed under administration following a court order is prevented from exercising their political rights for the duration of the administration. The original provision respected citizens' rights to a greater extent because it provided that decisions issued by exceptional courts didn't preclude individuals from exercising their right to run for election.
- Article 2(3) of the law provides that anyone who receives an imprisonment sentence under the Agricultural Reform Law, Provisions Law, Price Fixing Law or receiving money greater than the sum stipulated in the contract or who commits a money smuggling or customs tax evasion offence (unless this sentence is suspended) is barred from exercising their political rights. This despite the fact that the vast majority of - if not all - economic and social crimes do not require their perpetrators to be deprived of this right.
- Article 2(6) provides that any state employee or anyone working in the public sector dismissed from his post for reasons of improper conduct may not exercise his political rights. The reasons given are not clearly defined and it is not stipulated that the dismissal must have been for disciplinary reasons following a court or administrative order.
- Article 42 is vague and elastic in meaning to the extent that it is susceptible to misapplication for improper motives. Anyone who publishes or broadcasts false information about a referendum or the morals or conduct of one of the candidates with the aim of influencing the election result may be punished by imprisonment or a fine. The penalty is doubled where the offence occurs at a time when voters are unable to establish the truth.
3. All guarantees necessary to hold free and fair elections must be provided, such as:
a. Preparation of a new electoral register drawn up on the basis of data provided in the new national ID number forms whose collection was originally scheduled to end in 2003 but which has been extended until 2005. This register must contain complete information including date of birth, home or work address and national ID number. This will contribute in ensuring the transparency of the register and preventing tampering.
b. Tampering with the electoral register must be criminalised because such acts constitute tampering with the wishes of the people. The penalty imposed for the offence must act as a deterrent and must therefore be life imprisonment.
c. An end must be put to administrative interference in the elections through the putting in place of legislation prohibiting local administrations from participating in the election process. An election propaganda supervision mechanism must be put in place to strengthen equality of opportunity between candidates.
d. There must be judicial supervision of both the presidential and parliamentary elections, and the guarantees necessary to ensure full judicial independence from the executive branch put in place. Judges must be assigned the task of supervision of the election process. These judges must be drawn from the senior ranks of the judiciary - the Cassation, State Council or Supreme Constitutional Courts. Judicial rulings must be implemented, in particular those of the administrative judiciary pertaining to rulings concerning appeals the elections and candidatures. Gaps which allow the implementation of verdicts to be delayed must be removed.
e. Provisions of the penal and Criminal Procedures Codes pertaining to election crimes must be amended in order to allow direct legal action against state employees who commit crimes during the course of public elections who perpetrate offences compromising the probity of these elections. Criminal and civil cases should not be rendered invalid by the passage of time.
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