EGYPT'S PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS: ASSESSING DAY ONE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 008555 SIPDIS NSC STAFF FOR SINGH E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/09/2015 TAGS: PGOV KDEM EG SUBJECT: EGYPT'S PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS: ASSESSING DAY ONE REF: A. CAIRO 8554 ¶B. CAIRO 8546 ¶C. CAIRO 8501 AND PREVIOUS Classified by DCM Stuart Jones for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Egypt's People's Assembly elections kicked off on November 9. For the first time in Egypt's long history of legislative elections, domestic civil society monitors played a prominent role in the proceedings. The unprecedented numbers of civil society monitors have also begun to yield a very detailed catalogue of irregularities and violations, many of which were also observed by Emboffs in the field on November 9. While there appear to have been a number of instances of violence and intimidation, we are not aware of any fatalities or serious injuries, although there are reports that three youths working for an opposition candidate campaign are missing in the Nile Delta province of Manoufiya. Emboffs in the field were also struck by the predominance and organization of the (nominally independent) candidates affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB),reinforcing the group's reputation as the most disciplined and best organized opposition force in the country. While today's process was anything but tidy, the strong role played by monitors, and the lower level of violence, establishes these elections, so far, as significantly improved over the 2000 People's Assembly elections. Results from today's elections may be revealed as early as midday Thursday, November 10, Cairo time. Many of today's races will likely generate runoffs. End summary. -------------- Civil Society Cataloguing Violations -------------- ¶2. (SBU) The main story of the day was the prominent role played by domestic election monitors. Independent Coalition for Election Monitoring (ICEM, the coalition headed by Saad Eddin Ibrahim's Ibn Khaldun Center, IKC) issued its first press release at around noon local time. ICEM said that it had over 1500 observers in the field for the November 9 poll, responsible for 10,644 ballot stations. Other domestic monitoring groups fielded at least 1000 more workers. ¶3. (SBU) ICEM lauded the initial cooperation of the security services in ensuring the safety of observers, and praised the GOE for ensuring public accessibility to clearly marked ballot stations, but also called attention to a number of shortcomings and violations in the process. Other observers with whom we have spoken have echoed the concerns cited by ICEM. -------------- - Domestic Monitors' Access: Read the Fine Print -------------- - ¶4. (C) ICEM and other organizations criticized the Ministry of Justice's decision late on November 8 to allow only those civil society organizations that are legally registered NGOs with the Ministry of Social Affairs to have access to the polling stations. ICEM is organized under the umbrella of the Ibn Khaldoun Center which is not registered as an NGO. Even registered NGOs, like the Egyptian Association for Supporting Democracy (EASD),asserted that, in numerous cases, electoral authorities did not allow its monitors to enter polling stations. -------------- Voter Lists -------------- ¶5. (C) As widely anticipated, inaccuracies with the voter lists in most constituencies appeared to be the most pervasive problem. ICEM cited numerous irregularities in voter lists in various constituencies in several provinces. Embassy contact Hisham Kassem (protect),publisher of the leading Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, Vice President of the Ghad Party, and President of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, told us "the big disaster was the voter lists, which the government made no effort to fix." (Comment: Although there were reports in the last week that voter lists in various districts had been purged of tens of thousands of bad entries, it is clear that they remain flawed. These flaws include missing voter names, duplicate names, misspelled names, misfiled names, and names of the deceased. The GOE insists that the lists are flawed in part because citizens do not exercise their right to correct mistakes and that it is working toward a comprehensive solution in the coming years. End comment.) -------------- Violence and Intimidation -------------- ¶6. (C) ICEM reported that in Bagour, Manofiya, three candidate representatives working for Wafdist Muhammed Kamal, an opponent of veteran NDP MP Kamal El-Shazli, are missing. In a late afternoon phone call with poloff, a senior ICEM coordinator also alleged that Ayman Nour's wife, Gamila Ismail, had been assaulted in Bab Shareya, but she was unable to provide additional details or corroboration. (Poloff also attempted to confirm this story directly Ismail, but was unable to reach her.) She also noted instances of violence, some involving gunfire, in parts of Cairo, Giza, Minya, Assiut, and Sohag. -------------- Vote Buying and Fraud -------------- ¶7. (C) Hisham Kassem told us that his paper (the prestigious daily Al-Masry Al-Youm) would be documenting on the morning of November 10 various instances in which ruling NDP candidates bought votes. Kassem said that one of his reporters returning from the Sayida Zeinab district of Cairo had been "devastated" by the blatant vote selling that he witnessed. ¶8. (C) In the Manial district of Cairo, political LES witnessed supporters of Ms. Shahinaz Al-Naggar, an NDP-linked "independent," paying female voters to vote for Naggar. According to our LES colleague, voters received between 20 and 100 pounds for the votes, depending on the amount of resistance that they initially presented to Naggar's supporters. ¶9. (C) Hisham Kassem also asserted that a judge at a polling station in Giza, where NDP tycoon Mohammad Aboulenein is running, had arrested NDP activists whom he caught red-handed in tampering with a ballot box, but the police later released the accused in response to a request from the NDP. For its part, ICEM monitors noted that in Beni Suef and parts of Cairo, witnesses reported that ballots for had been circulated in advance and marked for NDP candidates. -------------- Other Violations -------------- ¶10. (SBU) The EASD, in a mid-afternoon press release, alleged that in "several cases" polling places were located in police stations, in violation of stated policy. (Emboff noted one such site in the eastern Cairo suburb of Nasr City.) ¶11. (C) ICEM noted that most ballot stations continue to display a profusion of campaign posters and other materials. Depending on the efforts of competing candidates, some polling stations have been festooned with signs from multiple candidates, while others have been dominated by single candidates. ICEM also claimed that 45 percent of the polling stations it was monitoring had not yet opened by mid-morning. -------------- MB Out in Force -------------- ¶12. (C) It has long been a truism of Egyptian politics that the outlawed but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood is the best organized, disciplined, and efficient force on the political stage. This truism was largely borne out by the observations of emboffs who took to the field on November 9. In Giza, various districts of Cairo, the Nile Delta province of Manoufiya, and the Upper Egypt provinces of Minya and Beni Suef, MB activists were out in force, often with banners, posters, and flyers featuring relatively slick graphics. MB activists, in many cases under the auspices of the "Sawasiya Human Rights Center" - an MB initiative launched in 2004, took on the guise of "independent" monitors at the majority of polling stations we visited. In at least one case, these MB activists even supplied a North Cairo polling station with ink. ¶13. (C) Embassy contacts speculate that the MB's last minute withdrawal of 8 candidates from the November 9 polls (out of a total of 150 candidates in all three stages),was the result of an internal tactical decision by the group. Those candidates that withdrew, our contacts believe, were unlikely to win in their districts, and the MB was seeking to minimize the number of its candidates who will fall into the "losers" column. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶14. (C) Today's process was not tidy, as confirmed by the observations of Emboffs, who were out visiting polling sites all day in five governorates. More importantly, however, domestic election observers were out in unprecedented numbers (at least 2500) and with unprecedented (if imperfect) access. In 2000, by contrast, only a few hundred monitors braved the obstacles thrown up by the GOE and the ruling NDP, against the backdrop of the arrest and looming prosecution of activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the godfather of election monitoring in Egypt. Violence and intimidation were factors today, but appears markedly less than it was in 2000, when five people died in election-related violence in the Cairo round alone. Also in contrast to 2000, we received no reports today of security force intervention to block access to polling stations. ¶15. (C) It is too soon to assess the extent of fraud and manipulation in today's process. This picture will become clearer as we assess the results of today's voting, which may be released as soon as midday Thursday, local Cairo time. It is worth remembering that today's vote will be followed by runoffs on November 15, and second and third rounds of voting, with runoffs, later in November and in early December. (In 2000, almost half of the races went to the runoff stage.) Further races, particularly competitive contests in the Delta, could prove uglier than what we saw today. End comment. RICCIARDONE