EU/Egypt — Statement on the elections to the People’s Assembly of Egypt

State­ment by EU High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cather­ine Ash­ton on the elec­tions to the People’s Assem­bly of Egypt

Cather­ine Ash­ton, the High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Union for For­eign Affairs and Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy and Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Com­mis­sion, made today the fol­low­ing state­ment:
“I have fol­lowed with close inter­est the elec­tions to the People’s Assem­bly of Egypt which took place on 28 Novem­ber and 5 Decem­ber. The Euro­pean Union sup­ports free and fair par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, rec­og­niz­ing the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the Egypt­ian peo­ple to choose their own future and to build a sta­ble demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem. The Euro­pean Union believes that in every coun­try an open elec­toral process is the key to a strong nation and society.

Ahead of these elec­tions we took pos­i­tive note of the mea­sures of the Gov­ern­ment and the High­er Elec­toral Com­mis­sion to increase trans­paren­cy in the elec­tion process includ­ing local elec­tion obser­va­tion. Unfor­tu­nate­ly the imple­men­ta­tion of these mea­sures was insuf­fi­cient. I was con­cerned by reports of irreg­u­lar­i­ties, restrict­ed access for inde­pen­dent observers and can­di­dates’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives into polling sta­tions, media restric­tions as well as arrests of oppo­si­tion activists. A sig­nif­i­cant seg­ment of the oppo­si­tion with­drew after the first round of the elec­tions. I par­tic­u­lar­ly regret the inci­dents of vio­lence, some of them result­ing in loss of life.

I encour­age the Egypt­ian author­i­ties to respond to these con­cerns. The EU will con­tin­ue to call on the Egypt­ian gov­ern­ment to per­mit domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al mon­i­tors to observe future elec­tions, and remains ready to offer assis­tance in that regard.

Egypt is a key part­ner of the EU and we remain com­mit­ted to con­tin­ue work­ing togeth­er, build­ing on the reforms already under­tak­en and on the pro­gramme set out in the EU/Egypt Action Plan.” 

Source:
Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union 

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