Partners for Transparency releases its first report for the Aswatuna Against Your Money initiative

Legal violations of the majority of candidates: the most serious of which are the failure to record accounts and the absence of an accountant in the campaign

Cases of electoral bribes and the use of places of worship in Alexandria, and the situation is better in Fayoum

Issued Partners for transparency PFT  Its initial report to assess electoral financing and spending for the constituencies targeted in the first phase of the Egyptian parliamentary elections, which deals with a quantitative analysis of the results of field monitoring carried out by the “Our Voices Against Your Money” initiative team in two electoral districts in the governorates of Alexandria and Fayoum, which are Muharram Bek constituencies in Alexandria, whose seats are 36 candidates. And the Fayoum city constituency in Fayoum, which has 27 candidates running for seats

They were partners for transparency PFT   It has embarked on implementing its initiative to monitor electoral financing and spending in a number of electoral districts under the title “ Our voices are facing your money ”, Since September 2015, and the initiative will continue until the end of the second phase of the parliamentary elections in December 2015.

The initiative aims to come up with general indicators about the nature of electoral financing and spending in the Egyptian elections, and to establish new, scalable tools that can be used extensively later to help civil society organizations, the National Elections Authority, the media and parties to monitor, control and regulate the use of money in the electoral process.

The report uncovered a set of fundamental observations related to electoral financing and spending in the Muharram Bek and Fayoum districts, the most prominent of which were the following:

• The first observation The candidates in the two constituencies in question are not obligated to record the accounts related to their electoral campaigns in regular records in the manner specified by the Law on the Exercise of Political Rights, which is the violation in which the vast majority of the candidates in the two constituencies occurred, which opens the door to questioning the true values of advertising expenditures Electoral for these candidates.
• The second observation What was most prominent in the Muharram Bey district was the lack of transparency and disclosure of the various aspects of the candidate’s election campaign, which was evident in the majority of candidates ’refusal to disclose the donations they received, or their denial of receiving such donations, as is evident in the two constituencies with regard to the reluctance of the vast majority of Candidates must announce their bank account number, the real values of their campaign expenditures, and the sources of funding for voters in their constituencies, and although the Law on the Exercise of Political Rights includes a clear loophole in that, as it does not lay down regulatory rules in this regard, political harmonization and the rules of integrity and transparency required candidates. Commitment to that.
• Third observation : Related to the practice of electoral campaigning at other than its legal timings, and this observation was more prominent in the Muharram Bek district than in the city of Fayoum, where most of the Muharram Bek constituency candidates practiced electoral propaganda outside its official timing, which is a clear violation of the organizing rules contained in the Law on Exercising Rights Political
• Fourth note : It is related to the payment of electoral bribes, which were recorded on a small scale in Moharram Bek governorate in Alexandria, while no similar cases were recorded in the Fayoum city district.
• Fifth note It is considered a positive note, as there were no recorded cases of using NGOs or governmental establishments in the propaganda process in the two departments, while there were limited cases of using places of worship in the Muharram Bek district in Alexandria.
• The sixth note Related to the presence of a chartered accountant in the candidates' campaigns, as the results of monitoring in the two departments revealed that the vast majority of the candidates do not include legal accountants in their campaigns in the form specified by the Law on the Exercise of Political Rights, which opens the door to random funding and spending, and the form of financial reporting later, and reducing Confidence rates in the reality of revenues and expenses related to candidates' campaigns.
• The seventh note : Concerning the difference between the two constituencies in the extent and nature of the legal violations related to financing and electoral spending, as the Fayoum district was much better than the Muharram Bek district, which indicates that political money was more present, and the related violations are more prominent in the Muharram Bey district than in the city Fayoum, and the cultural, social and economic context in both spheres may have an important role in this. .

To view the full report  : https://pfort.org/?p=676