Press Release
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Today, Tuesday, 19/12/ 2023, the Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialogue issues its report “Serious Elections Express the Will of the Voters”, which included the results of the follow-up work for the 2024 Presidential Elections under international and national mechanisms and the Egyptian Constitution and laws to follow up the. As well as monitoring all activities related to the electoral process.
The report deals in the first axis with the General (political, economic, and social) climate in which the presidential elections were held. Moreover, the reality of the Egyptian economy (the challenges it faces) and the repercussions of the coronavirus epidemic, which appeared at the end of 2019, caused waves of shocks that swept the global economy and caused the largest global economic crisis besides the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.
Concerning the political climate, the report indicates that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi launched the National Strategy for Human Rights, which aims to promote social, economic, political, and cultural rights. In addition, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s call in 2022 for a political dialogue on the priorities of national action represented a new step added to a set of important steps within the framework of building an Egyptian model of openness and political reform.
The report also deals in the second axis with the vision of the political parties for the presidential elections, where some parties supported their presidential candidates, and monitors the report of the electoral campaign activities of the four candidates.
The third section of the report deals with the activities of candidates for the presidential elections. The fourth section of the report monitors the process of following up on the presidential elections.
In conclusion, the report concludes with a number of the following observations, the most important of which are:
• The regularity of the opening of the electoral commissions within the legal time specified in most of the committees and a limited delay in opening some committees due to the delay of the judges and the heads of those committees
• Heavy turnout of voters in front of the committees in (Beni Suef – Qena – Beheira – Minya – Alexandria – Cairo – Gharbia)
• An increasing and noticeable turnout for some expatriate committees in the governorates
• There was a clear effort by the National Elections Authority to allocate committees for people with disabilities and cooperation to provide logistical tools such as ambulances, wheelchairs, and other tools to facilitate the participation of people with disabilities. However, in the same context, the Forum’s Observers in (Qena and Sohag) monitored the following:
- The lack of trained persons to deal with people with disabilities, and the National Council for the Rights of People with Disabilities did not contribute to providing People with mild disabilities themselves according to the official letter sent to the governors and directorates to facilitate the electoral process for people with disabilities.
- Some of the wheelchairs inside the electoral commissions are old and it is difficult to move the wheelchair for people with heavy weights.
- The presence of only one indicative poster outside some committees for sign language for people with hearing disabilities and the absence of an indicative poster within the committee.
• There was a remarkable turnout of young people to vote in some committees in (Alexandria – Beni Suef – Qena – Luxor)
• Wide participation of women in Cairo, Giza, Alexandria, Gharbia, Beni Suef, Beheira, Qena,
For his part, Saeed Abdel Hafez, Chairman of the Forum for Human Rights Dialogue, stressed that the Presidential Elections can be described as serious elections that sincerely express the will of the voters.
The coordinator of the coalition valued the role of the National Elections Authority, which contributed to protecting the will of the voters and facilitating the participation of citizens in managing public affairs.
He thanked the candidates for their commitment to objectivity and professionalism in managing their electoral campaigns, which contributed to holding fair elections worthy of a country the size of Egypt.
