To promote governance integrity and access to decision making centres: Legislation should be developed to address failure to hold elections
AMAN: A law is needed to determine powers of the Central Elections Commission
Ramallah – The Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (AMAN) discussed its draft report, Effective, Impartial and Independent Functions of the Central Elections Commission in the Electoral Process: The Legislative Elections of 2021. The discussion aimed at identifying the challenges, which negatively impact integrity of the electoral process. It explored the link between these challenges, integrity of governance, and access to power and decision making centres. The session came up with recommendations to relevant parties with a view to overcoming challenges, promoting the integrity of, and ensuring effective, impartial and independent election management, based on serving the public interest.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Issam Haj Hussein, AMAN Executive Director, stressed the importance of AMAN report. Interventions are tailored to strengthen the integrity of governance in Palestine, access to decision making centres through elections, role of the electoral system, and independence of the Central Elections Commission (CEC). Hussein expressed regret about the constraints on Palestinian citizens’ participation in governance. This has manifested in cancelling the elections and suppressing the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
Need for a law to govern CEC functions and separate technical from political processes
Zakaria al-Sarhad reviewed key findings and recommendations of AMAN report. The legislative act that governs CEC functions should be upgraded from a CEC bylaw to a law owing to the importance of enhancing CEC independence, impartiality, and integrity in the electoral process. The Basic Law and General Election Law will be amended. Further provisions will be added to address failure to hold elections, provide a mechanism for decision making on postponement and maximum period of postponement, and establish CEC powers. Amendments will ensure that the decision making process is neither monopolised nor used by the political regime to undermine the integrity of governance. The CEC will be given powers to observe and monitor the right of candidates, who need to receive letters of resignation. If intended for standing for elections, these will be binding on employers under pain of prosecution.
According to AMAN report, the CEC should maintain a total separation between purely technical procedures and those of a political nature. This will overcome any political pressure placed by the government, factions, political parties, or any other agencies, as was the case with holding elections in Jerusalem. Amendments will also provide for reducing the security deposit for candidacy to less than US$ 10,000. Otherwise, the deposit will be proportionately linked to the number of candidates on an electoral list. This will make sure the security deposit will not be an obstacle to candidacy, but enhance the integrity of governance.
AMAN report includes recommendations aimed at an optimal management of the electoral process. Of these, the CEC needs to upgrade the voters list annually via e-registration and registration at schools. To be revised in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Interior, the voters list will be linked to the Ministry of Justice to realise the right to vote, ensuring that no conviction is in place against any voters on the list. Registration will be allowed to voters at any polling centre, regardless of the voter’s place of residence that is registered on their ID cards. This will be in tandem with the provisions of the Election Law, which considers Palestine as a single constituency.
Overcoming challenges that limit control over electoral campaign financing
AMAN report indicates that the most significant challenge to election management lies in the inability to control electoral campaign financing. AMAN called on the CEC to establish a dedicated department or section and appoint staff to be tasked with field observation of election campaigning by electoral lists. On its website, the CEC will make publicly available the financial statements of electoral lists after the elections are held. Bank accounts of electoral lists will be accessed by civil society and media oversight to consolidate the transparency of election management. The CEC will require that electoral lists submit externally audited account statements at all times, not only upon suspicion.
Information dissemination and civil society and media oversight will promote public trust in the electoral process
Regarding transparency and public access, AMAN report recommends that the CEC publish information when any media outlet or electoral list violates provisions of the Election Law. To also maintain the public right to observe the elections, information will include names, dates, and nature of violations. The CEC will oblige civil oversight bodies and journalists to ensure a fair distribution to various polling centres, avoiding concentration in major cities while at the same time neglecting other districts.
CEC: We have resolved the change of polling centres and referred the complaint to the Public Prosecution
Mr. Hisham Kuheil, CEC Chief Electoral Officer, highlighted the recommendations of AMAN report, first and foremost the need for a law to identify CEC powers. Kuheil commended voter turnout and e-registration, which had exceeded all expectations in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching up to 93 percent, or 428,000 citizens.
Kuheil explained that election management and planning mainly rely on the voters list, which represents the Palestinian people wherever they are present. The civil registry does not reflect this accurately. According to Kuheil, in principle, the voters list should be open all year round, except during the designated electoral period. Upgraded annually, the voters list accommodates all types of elections, both general and local.
In relation to changing voter registration sites, Kuheil said that some persons abused a CEC e-service to facilitate voter registration and altered polling places. Kuheil highlighted that the CEC e-system “is well protected and impenetrable. In no way does it allow to remove registered voters’ names. In addition to 40 incidents in Gaza, the CEC monitored some 200 abnormal instances, which involved changing polling place of a number of voters in the city of Hebron. The irregularity was fixed and referred to the Attorney General.”
Kuheil also noted the huge number of applications for election observation, exceeding 60,000 observers in a given year. Consequently, the CEC had to limit observation to registered and independent institutions engaged in the fields of democracy, human rights, and good governance. Participants in the session elaborated on another problem, namely, electoral campaign financing, as a law on parties is not in place.
Shuaibi: Recourse to the law will prevent discretionary power over the CEC
Dr. Azmi Shuaibi, Consultant to AMAN’s Board of Directors for Anti-Corruption Affairs, stressed the importance of a law, which immunises the CEC and precludes any discretionary power to postpone elections without legally prescribed parameters.
