|
Mubarak accused of fraud in first elections Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1456302.htmhttp://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1456302.htm
Mubarak accused of electoral fraud PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
PM - Thursday, 8 September , 2005 18:30:00
Reporter: David Hardaker
MARK COLVIN: No one has any real doubt about who's won Egypt's first contested presidential election. The answer's bound to be the incumbent, Hosni Mubarak. But the question people are asking is whether he'll be able to persuade Egyptians, and the rest of the world, that he won fair and square.
Opposition candidates and independent monitors say Mr Mubarak's supporters have massively violated electoral law.
Forced voting, paid voters, unmanned polling stations, missing indelible ink and the use of public transport to ferry voters to polling stations are just some of the accusations being bandied.
Journalist David Hardaker told me from his home in Alexandria that the Opposition claims contrasted vividly with the rosy picture of millions of orderly voters painted by the state-run media.
DAVID HARDAKER: They do indeed, Mark. There are reports today, for example, that one official of Hosni Mubarak's party, the National Democratic Party, was in fact videotaping people as they're casting their vote.
There are reports that there are food parcels being offered to people as they turned up to cast their vote, even a lottery being on offer where the first prize is a trip to Mecca.
Now, these are the sorts of inducements which of course are very much against the electoral laws, would hardly pass muster in Australia, needless to say.
The independent monitors were eventually allowed into the polling booths, but there are reports particularly in the countryside of Egypt that they were intimidated by officials from Mr Mubarak's party.
MARK COLVIN: And you say they were eventually allowed, but it's the timing that was the issues, wasn't it? Because originally they were told they couldn't get in, and then am I right in thinking that the order to let them in only came down so late that it was very difficult to mobilise?
DAVID HARDAKER: Mark, the order to let them in came in fact two hours after the polling stations were opened at 8am yesterday.
Now, prior to that, the key issue had been pressure from the United States to allow international monitoring. Hosni Mubarak rejected that out of hand, which was a direct snub to President Bush.
However, there are a handful of civil society groups in Egypt who've been training election monitors and who had been pressing to have those monitors in every polling booth.
On the eve of the election, a court ruled that in fact they should be allowed to monitor the progress of the election, but the Mubarak-appointed electoral commission overturned that court ruling and said it had no validity. Then, two hours after polling began, a complete turnaround, and monitors were allowed in.
But as you say, the key point is that they at that point had no ability to organise themselves properly, or systematically, nor to post themselves in the 9,000 polling booths spread around the country.
MARK COLVIN: Now you even in the couple of polling booths that you saw near your home said the turnout seemed pretty low, and a lot of the reports are suggesting low turnout.
Low turnout is pretty common in Egyptian elections - does that to some degree this time reflect a cynicism, a lack of belief that these were really free and fair elections at last?
DAVID HARDAKER: Well, what you have is 24 years of cynicism built up, because for the previous five presidential elections, citizens were simply asked to vote yes or no, whether they wanted Hosni Mubarak to be the president. There were no other candidates allowed.
So regularly Mr Mubarak was returned with majorities of 93 per cent, I think, was the lowest, it peaked at 99 per cent.
So ordinary Egyptians have become completely disconnected from the political process. They have a view that however they vote, the result is a foregone conclusion, whatever they say, the Government statistician will come up with the right result. So apathy is indeed the biggest enemy in this election.
Now today the state-owned daily again is reporting that millions turned up to cast their vote. There are no precise figures, but we can take as a guide a May referendum conducted nationally here in Egypt where the official newspaper reported that 53 per cent of the population turned out to vote. Independent monitoring groups, however, estimated that the real number was closer to 12 per cent.
MARK COLVIN: All right.
DAVID HARDAKER: And a judges' group indeed estimated that the real number was five per cent.
MARK COLVIN: All right.
DAVID HARDAKER: So we're talking about a 40 per cent discrepancy in a 50 per cent figure.
MARK COLVIN: David Hardaker on the line from Alexandria.
|
|
