Cabinet paves way toward election monitoring
The Lebanese Cabinet has approved a decree submitted by the Interior Ministry setting conditions for international election observation for the June 7 parliamentary polls.
A number of international election watchdogs have expressed interest in participating in the early summer contest, and Thursday night”s decision formally allows Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud to receive requests and issue invitations to organizations who want to participate in the process.
It was a "ministerial decree submitted by the Ministry of Interior for Cabinet approval," Osama Safa, director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies told The Daily Star. "The Interior Ministry can now issue licenses."
The Cabinet”s decision to permit international observation does not require parliamentary approval.
Certain parties have already expressed an interest in participating in the elections as observers. The National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Carter Center and the European Commission are among those bodies offering their assistance – a group of well-respected observers that Safa called "the usual suspects."
During a recent visit to Beirut, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrerro-Waldner said that the EU, which is providing monetary and technical assistance to the Interior Ministry ahead of the elections, would also be happy to participate as an observer. "We welcome international observers … particularly the EU," she said.
In addition, former US President Jimmy Carter, while visiting Lebanon in December, expressed his organization”s interest in acting as election observers. The Carter Center, founded by Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, in 1982, has a long history of international election observation.
NDI, who worked in partnership with the Carter Center in the 2005 Palestinian elections, has also voiced its willingness to participate in the elections. Joseph Hall, NDI”s senior adviser for the Middle East and North Africa, confirmed the institute”s desire to observe the polls.
"We have expressed out interest," he told The Daily Star on Friday.
Hall also explained that once Thursday”s decree was published in the Official Gazette, interested parties could formally request to observe the polls and the Interior Minister could extend invitations.
Nadine Ferighal, coordinator and legal consultant for the Civil Campaign for Electoral Reform (CCER), told The Daily Star on Friday that the move had been expected. But she also noted that the introduction of international observers to the process could have both positive and negative consequences.
"Observers, they don”t speak the language and sometimes they are not acquainted with the electoral culture that we have here in Lebanon," Ferighal said. "The plus side is the exposure that these observers get is much larger than what we get as Lebanese."
Safa also warned that international observers could not ensure the integrity of the polls. "Around the world, observers have no impact on the integrity of the elections," he said. They can observe and report irregularities and violations, he noted, but they cannot change the process, or the procedural guidelines governing the elections.
And Safa voiced serious dissatisfaction with the electoral law, passed last September, which will govern the 2009 polls. In a recent analysis piece on the upcoming elections, Safa noted, among other concerns, that the law did not put appropriate curbs on fraud and intimidation.
Speaking with The Daily Star Friday, he called the law "undemocratic" and suggested that the elections could be "unbalanced and unfair."
Ferighal also expressed her disappointment with the electoral law, saying that certain reforms the CCER had advocated had been left out of the law or not fully adopted. These reforms include the adoption of proportional representation, lowering the voting age to 18 and certain protections regarding election day anonymity.