El-Sadat: the Supreme Commission for Elections Act is the end of free and fair elections


Parliament Member/ Anwar El-Sadat, Head of Reform and Development Party (RDP) said that after a careful reading of the final version of the Bill - published on several news sites - of the Supreme Commission for Elections to be provided from the government to the House of Representatives, he took notice that the National Electoral Commission Act runs the elections without any prior control or any integrity electoral commitment standards. He pointed out that the Commission should work in accordance with specific legal constraints stipulated by law. He also stressed that the commission shall implement of those regulations and standards so that no one, especially the Executive Authority, intervenes the independence and integrity of the electoral process.

El-Sadat pointed out that the proposed law did not clearly specify the role, functions and competencies of workers at the Interim Executive entity of the Supreme Commission for Elections. Their role is secondary and minor when running elections. However, their role should be vital as monitoring the balloting and sorting of votes. Further, they should update the voters' register periodically every year and to launch awareness campaigns for the citizens on the importance of elections.
El-Sadat also stressed that the proposed law grounds for abolishing the judicial supervision of elections and does not guarantee the due protection needed for the new supervisors in order to play their role. Also, the proposed law will not develop their skills with training for running and managing the electoral process. This will result in having supervisors assigned from the government without any competences or guarantees to protect them or reflect their integrity or defines the mechanism of monitoring them.

Consequently, El-Sadat suggests to reconsider the proposed law to determine the terms of reference of the Commission, the committees and the executive authorities as well as to identify the monitoring entity that they will be subject to. He calls his colleagues to read the law in depth and to work together to develop controls and procedures to ensure the integrity of the elections and the further steps of Egypt towards greater democracy.

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