In recent days, there has been a growing demand for international monitoring of Egyptian presidential elections scheduled for September 7, despite a strong governmental rejection of such monitoring.
Head of the Egyptian Organization for Human Right (EOHR), Hafez Abu-Seeda, told on Tuesday KUNA that "such monitoring should be allowed to guarantee transparent elections." Judicial supervision of the elections is insufficient, he added.
According to the organization, Egypt's 11,000 judges will not be able to directly oversee the vote in the 56,000 polling stations across the country. EOHR also lashed out at the government rejection of a US offer to supervise the vote in its report.
Egyptian president's political advisor, Osama Al-Baz, had expressed the rejection, so did speaker of the lower parliament house (Shura Council) Safwat Al-Sharif.
EOHR affirmed that the refusal to allow any form of election monitoring by civil society groups, the media, or candidate representatives is unjustified and has no basis in law. Rather, it is in violation of the Constitution and international instruments.
