IFES ENGAGEMENT WITH EGYPT'S SUPREME ELECTIONS

UNCLAS CAIRO 001255 SENSITIVE SIPDIS NSC FOR PASCUAL E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM PO EG SUBJECT: IFES ENGAGEMENT WITH EGYPT'S SUPREME ELECTIONS COMMISSION REF: 2007 CAIRO 1408 Sensitive but unclassified. Not for Internet distribution. ¶1. (SBU) On June 16, the Egypt country director for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) debriefed us on a June 2-7 trip to Poland that IFES, in coordination with the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, arranged for three senior members of Egypt's Supreme Elections Commission (SEC),together with the SEC's secretary-general. The trip was funded through IFES' USD 1.3 million grant with USAID Egypt, and was the first direct contact IFES has yet had with the SEC (Carlson and his IFES colleagues met the SEC members for the first time while boarding the plane),due to sensitivities on the Egyptian side about the appearance of "foreign interference" in Egyptian elections. ¶2. (SBU) The SEC participants were Adel Zaki Andrawes (SEC chairman),Hassan Ahmad Hassan Soliman (SEC deputy chairman), Mohamed Ahmed Abu Zeid (SEC member),and Entesar Nessim Hanna (SEC secretary-general). (Note: The SEC has 11 members total. End note). During the trip to Warsaw, SEC members met repeatedly with the Polish National Elections Commission (NEC),which had prepared a program that offered the SEC access to various actors at all levels of the Polish electoral process. In addition to meetings with the Polish NEC, the SEC met with justices of the Polish Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, district level electoral commissions, and a mayor. During their meetings, the SEC delegation expressed interest in such issues as the operations of elections commissions, out-of-country voting, voter registration, and voter participation. According to IFES, while the SEC members were initially suspicious, by the end of the trip there was discussion of potential future cooperation between IFES and the SEC. In terms of the next step, IFES is aiming for another international exchange trip in the late fall (post-Ramadan),to visit either the Indian or Indonesian election commissions. IFES remains cautious and sanguine about the next steps, as the SEC is still sensitive about cooperation, and is "not yet fully on board, although they have come a long way." ¶3. (SBU) The Egyptian ambassador to Poland sat in on all the meetings in Warsaw. He was supportive, but did make a point of noting that IFES is not legally registered as an NGO in Egypt, a detail which the SEC members seemed well aware of. The ambassador will undoubtedly send a report to the Egyptian MFA reporting on the SEC's experience in Warsaw, which he described to IFES as "very positive." ¶4. (SBU) Comment: Since it was created in May 2007 (reftel), SEC members have repeatedly refused requests to meet with U.S. officials, including at the ambassadorial level. They had also previously rejected meetings with IFES. The recent break-through is in no small part the fruit of IFES' low-profile, go-slow, confidence building approach of working through Egyptian partner institutions to reach out to key Egyptian players such as the SEC. SCOBEY