Efficient election monitoring is essential for free and fair elections. But the government is doing what it can to prevent it, says Bahieddin Hassan*
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General elections are the means by which the nation can put into office those who best serve its political, economic, social and cultural interests. Through general elections, the nation can choose representatives that have the power to pass laws and allocate resources in ways that serve the public good.

In order to select its representatives, a nation must have the freedom to organise and express itself. Individuals and groups must have the right to set up political parties and form professional syndicates. People must have the right to establish labour unions and non-governmental organisations. Just as importantly, they should have the right to own and manage media organisations.

Taken together, these freedoms and rights are what enable a nation to pick and choose among different parties and ideological currents and opt for those that best suit its needs.

Unfortunately, the above conditions have been absent from Egypt since July 1952, which may explain why Egyptian voters lack enthusiasm in elections. Voter turnout in Egypt today is one of the lowest in the Arab world and far lower than it was before 1952.

Making an already poor picture worse is the fact that the electoral process lacks transparency, so much so that people are in no position to assess the credibility of elections. Transparency is not only a matter of providing see- through ballot boxes, in order to ensure that votes do indeed go where they are supposed to. It also depends above all on enabling citizens to monitor the electoral process.

Elections need to be monitored through a free media that has full access to information and to polling and counting stations. To achieve transparency, a body should supervise elections, and that body must be recognised by all as being independent. A body that is a mere façade for the security services is not in a position to supervise free elections. Furthermore, civil society organisations should be given the freedom to monitor elections, especially within the polling and counting stations, which brings us to the problems facing the monitoring process.

The independent civil society organisations that seek to monitor the parliamentary elections scheduled for 28 November face multiple problems. One is the government's reluctance, with the acquiescence of the National Council for Human Rights, to grant the necessary permits in order that they can carry out election monitoring.
The government is in the habit of preventing, either partially or completely, civil society groups from monitoring elections. Even in cases where these groups have been given officially-stamped permits, they have still been prevented from doing their job. This was definitely the case in the mid-term elections for the Shura Council in June 2010.

The danger is that the Shura Council elections will now serve as a dress rehearsal for November's parliamentary elections, though they also served as a test of the reaction of the international community, mainly the US and Europe, to widespread rigging. While the Shura Council elections may have drawn the ire of human rights groups, as well as the condemnation of the official and unofficial opposition and the displeasure of the media, as far as the government was concerned they were a success.

It managed, under the very nose of the higher committee that was supposed to be supervising the elections, openly to intervene to ensure the success of certain candidates. Ironically, the government also intervened to make sure that a token number of opposition candidates also won, even when these were running against candidates from the ruling party.

As a result, though the Shura Council elections were among the worst in the country's history, they nevertheless produced a council that contains a number of opposition party members. For their part, the opposition parties acquiesced in the rigging, satisfied to see some of their leaders appointed to the Shura Council on the direct orders of the president.

This dress rehearsal also reassured the government about the reaction of the international community. The criticisms, if any, were hardly audible. As a result, the government now feels it can repeat the same kind of abuses in the November elections.

Interestingly enough, it is also encouraging certain non- governmental organisations, ones that have no claim to being independent, to 'monitor' these elections. However, this is all window dressing: any 'monitoring' that takes place will be friendly, and any criticism will be confined to the kind of technical problems that can happen even in established democracies. These organisations, some of them backed by international organisations, have found a golden mean, and their mandate is only likely to grow in the next round of parliamentary elections.

The main problem for truly independent civil society organisations is the fact that November's elections will take place in the dark, as a result of measures taken by the government in October.

The government has all but dismantled the Al-Dostour newspaper, the country's most outspoken opposition publication and one that is known for its support of civil society and unofficial pressure groups. It has also clamped down on independent and opposition newspapers in general and on private television channels. Live coverage has been made harder for these, to the point where it has now almost become a government monopoly. Several talk shows have been discontinued, or their hosts banished from the airwaves.

Messages sent by mobile phones have been restricted, and further restrictions are about to hit the electronic media as a result of a law intended to 'combat electronic crime'. Facebook may be next. Several satellite television channels have been warned to watch their step, and some religious channels, presumably potential forums for the Muslim Brotherhood, have been accused of spreading sectarian hatred and shut down. Needless to say, the state- run media still feels free to spread sectarian hatred whenever it feels like it.

In parallel with this campaign, individuals suspected of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, especially in constituencies where ministers and leaders of the ruling party are running, are being arrested.
The list is far from complete, and an array of direct and indirect pressures is now being applied to human rights groups. These organisations not only have to strive to monitor the elections against all the odds. They also have to do so while being worried about their own survival.

* The writer is director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.