COMESA, CENSAD to send joint mission to observe 2018 polls

CAIRO – 24 March 2018: The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CENSAD) announced on Friday that they will deploy a joint mission at 10 Egyptian governorates to observe the three-day voting period in presidential elections which begins on Monday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Hamdy Sanad Loza said on Thursday that five regional and international organizations will participate in observing the presidential election nationwide. These organizations are the Arab League (AL), African Union (AU), Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly and COMESA-CENSAD.

Loza added that he met with the head of the COMESA mission, Ms Hope Kivengere, who arrived in Cairo on Thursday, adding that Egypt considers the African observation of the polls as a kind of solidarity with the Egyptian people.

As part of its mission in Egypt, the African delegation will conduct pre-election observation to gather information on election-related issues and to assess election awareness. The findings of the pre-election observation will be included into the detailed report that will be submitted to the National Election Authority (NEA) and the Egyptian government within 90 days from the election date.

According to the NEA, the presidential elections will be supervised by 18,620 judges (primary and substitute), including 8,420 regular judges, 4,800 administrative prosecutors, 3,300 judges from State Lawsuits Authority and 2,100 judges from State Council.

The NEA announced that the two-day electoral silence will begin on Saturday in accordance with the Egyptian law and the authority’s declared election timetable.

On the other hand, the NEA spokesperson Mahmoud El Sherif, who also serves as the deputy head of the authority, said that the NEA did not detect any electoral violation during the campaigning period of the candidates, stressing the candidates' campaigns’ commitment to the election promotion rules.

El Sherif added that the primary results of the first round of the election will be announced on March 29, where decisions on appeals submitted by candidates, if any, will be made. The final results of the first round will be announced on April 2.