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).

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Summary
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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.

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Civil Society Cataloguing Violations
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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.

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Domestic Monitors' Access: Read the Fine Print
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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.

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Voter Lists
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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.)

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Violence and Intimidation
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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.

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Vote Buying and Fraud
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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.

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Other Violations
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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.

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MB Out in Force
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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.

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Comment
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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