"Our voices against your money" initiative

Concept paper
Introduction
Partners for transparency PFT is civil society organization, registered accordance with the provisions of
Egyptian law No. "9729",on December 2014, Take into account the independence and neutrality
"politically" and "ideologically", it work in the framework of helping the community to consolidate and
implement values and practices of integrity, transparency, and accountability, in order to achieve
development " comprehensive humanitarian" respect for human rights, and construction the good
governance system .
In the framework of its keenness on the integrity of the upcoming parliamentary elections, the Partners
for transparency PFT will conduct an initiative considered the first of its kind in Egypt. To observe the
electoral funding and spending in a number of constituencies, entitled "Our voices against your money"
and pursuant to the principle of transparency, which is committed to the "partners for Transparency"
PFT, it propose this paper for the interested and concerned of the electoral matter. For promoting its
initiative, the legal basses and methodology underlying the prior to the actual application.
Why observing the electoral funding?
The electoral funding issue is one of the main issues, which defines- among other issues- the integrity
of the electoral process, and the final results for the expression of the true will of the electorate, and
how far the money was an affecting factor to the political process (using the political money).
In Egypt, attention to the "political money" and using it issue escalating with the approach of
parliamentary elections, which is the first after the revolutionary wave in June 30 2013, and the second
in January 2011 after the revolution.
There are several objective justifications for increased attention to this issue can be highlighted what
follows: 1. There is objective evidence of a significant and positive decline in traditional forms of
violations related to the electoral process, that, Physical fraud that prevailed before January 25,
2011, and the manipulation of the results of the sort of ballot papers. All these practices are no
longer prevalent in elections and referendums after January 2011. In addition, the existing

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legislation and procedures of the electoral process does not allow reproducing those features on
a scale to affect the safety and integrity of the electoral process. However, other forms of
violations, there are still fears of heir negative impact on the elections, and perhaps the most
prominent of these potential violations of those associated with the use of political money
directly (provide financial or in-kind bribes), or indirectly (exceeded the legal spending limit reliance on illegal sources of funding for the election campaign).
2. Although the legal framework governing the electoral process is not enough to control electoral
funding and electoral spending, and it also does not guarantee the existence of effective
mechanisms to monitor it, but it includes new provisions that can be built upon, thus, the
interest in this issue seems consistent with the legislative trend itself. As well as that, this
attention can be reflected in the future on the development of this legislation.
3. Experiences and initiatives of the Egyptian civil society organizations in the campaign spending
follow-up is very limited, Which led to a severe shortage of expertise that can be built upon, the
almost complete absence of tools that can be used to follow up on the candidates and parties
campaign spending. Therefore, we need to start in establishing these tools, to enable the
Egyptian civil society organizations in the future to expand the financial follow-up to election
spending.

The legislative framework governing the financial spending on elections

Fiscal spending according to the international instruments
Electoral spending tuning derives its legitimacy of the international standards concerning of
protecting the right to political participation, Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights provides for the right of citizens without distinction to vote and hold public
office and the management of public affairs by themselves or through their representatives.
According to the interpretation of the Commission on Human Rights concerned to apply the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in its commenting on article 25 of the
Covenant, it can justify reasonable limits to spend on the election campaign. To ensure not to
undermine the freedom of choice of voters or distort the democratic process through excessive
expenditure on behalf of any candidate or party.
As stipulated in the United Nations Convention against Corruption, That "Each State Party
shall consider taking appropriate legislative and administrative measures, consistent with the
objectives of the Convention and in accordance with the fundamental principles of its domestic
law, to enhance transparency in the nomination funding for elected public office and in the
funding of political parties.

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Fiscal spending in the exercise of political rights law

The exercise of political rights law No. 45 for the year 2015 came to put regulatory measures for
financing and electoral spending, We can identify the most important of these procedures are as
follows.
1. The law gives the right of each candidate that receives cash or in-kind donations of natural
persons only the Egyptians and the Egyptian parties, but it conditioned that the donation shall
not exceed the amount of 5% (five per cent) of the maximum planned to spend in the election
campaign.
2. The prohibition on received a candidate for the elections (individually or list) from getting any
contributions or cash or in-kind support for the electoral campaign from any legal person,
whether Egyptian or foreign, or from any country or foreign entity, or an international
organization or any entity that contributes in its funding the Egyptians person, whatever he was
a natural person or legal entity or any foreign entity in whatever form. The law also banned
receiving donations from a natural foreigner.
3. Each candidate required by law to open an account in the local currency at a bank specified by
the High Elections Committee or one of the post offices and the stipulated duration to be done
within the nomination papers, and deposited in this account receives from cash donations, And
the devoted money for advertising and restrict the monetary value of in-kind donations, the law
also required of both the Bank and the candidate to inform the Commission directly the
deposited in this account and its source. Candidate also committed to notify the Committee
about the spending from this account, during appointments and in accordance with the
procedures determined by the committee. The law also stipulates the inadmissibility of the
spending on the campaign out of this account.
4. Each candidate has committed to hold a regular record in accordance with the accounting
standards to write down funding sources and expenses of his electoral propaganda, and
entrusted the Higher Committee controls and procedures of holding for such registers and
providing this record for review.
5. The law texted that the High Committee to form a monitoring committees composed from
independent experts, entrusted with monitoring the facts happens over the provinces, that
violate regulations established by the Constitution or the law or the decisions of the High
Committee on propaganda.
6. The law put some prohibitions in candidate advertising himself including spending, and the use
of buildings, facilities, public transport owned by the state, and the public companies or sector,
and the headquarters of associations and civil organizations, as well as the use of public
facilities and houses of worship, universities, schools and university towns and other public and
private education institutions. And prohibit spending public funds or funds of public sector
companies or public sector or associations and organizations. Also prohibit gifts, donations or

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other monetary or in-kind assistance or benefits or promise by providing, either directly or

indirectly.
7. the electoral law allow the beginning of publicity from the date of announcement of the final list
of candidates, until the twelfth hour of the day before the date set for the ballot. And in the case
of re-election the publicity starting the next day to announce the result of the ballot in the first
round and until twelve o'clock noon on the day before the date fixed for voting in runoff. And
banned election propaganda in these dates is not in any way.
8. Law decided to sentence a fine of not less than ten thousand pounds and not exceeding one
hundred thousand pounds for doing any act of propaganda in violation of the deadline set by
law, or spending on electoral propaganda unrestricted the amounts in the bank account defined
by the High Committee, accepting a donation in excess of the percentage set forth (with
confiscation of funds, which represents an increase on the figure).
9. The law decided to prison sentence and a fine not less than one hundred thousand pounds and
not exceeding one million pounds, if the candidate received any of prohibited donations and the
court judging to confiscate the funds subject of the crime.

General framework for "our voices against money" initiative

The overall objective of the initiative
"Partners for transparency" PFT seeking through "our voices against money" initiative, to contribute to
the integrity of the next House of Representatives election, through fighting against the phenomenon of
using money to influence the will of the voters. In addition to the development of "entry points"and
effective tools can be used later extensively, to strengthen the role of civil society organizations in
monitoring the "electoral funding and spending." Moreover, to ensure the commitment of candidates
and parties to the governing legal frameworks.
The geographic scope
"Our voices in the face of money" initiative will be implemented in five constituencies, by one
constituency of each of the governorates (Cairo - Fayoum - Dakahlia - Port Said - Alexandria), and
these constituencies are:

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Governorates

constituency

Numbers of the seats

Cairo
Fayoum
Dakhliah
Port Saied
Alexandria

The19th ( Maadi and Tura)

The second( Fayoum city(
The first (Mansura city )
The first (Al Shark District)
The fourth ( Moharm Bek)

1
2
3
1
2

The constituencies were chosen in order to give a good indication of the nature of fiscal spending in
the whole electoral process, as well as to facilitate the dissemination of findings and recommendations
and tools that will emerge by the initiative process.
The method used in the follow-up process
"Partners for transparency" PFT will applying an integrated approach in the follow-up process is based
on the combination of the collection of field documented, information for each candidate from the rival
candidates for a seat / constituency seats, and analyzing this information based on the governing legal
framework. In preparation to issue progress reports and a final report includes a more accurate estimate
for the features of the electoral funding and spending for each candidate. The final report will also
provide a package of recommendations and tools for the proposed expansion, which can be used later
to observe fiscal spending. Which are recommendations and tools primarily intended for interested
parties (civil society organizations - the electoral management bodies - the media).
The methodology based on the integration of a range of community-based parties in the follow-up
process, these parties are financial analysts, accountants, advertising professionals, monitors and
information collectors, where the committee will be formed and from them in each of these
constituencies. The committee will apply the main tool, which is "electoral funding and spending
analysis of the candidate form", it will be designed in a way that allows to take the package of social,
political and legal factors into consideration when assessing funding for each candidate spending. As it
allowed linking between information package that is collected in the field and the information that will
be accessed through communication with the candidates themselves and their campaign managers. In
general is the most important information contained in the following: 1. The extent of the obligation to open a special account for the campaign and bookkeeping
2. The availability of the necessary human resources to manage the process of funding and
spending
3. The extent of campaign financing sources legality and the commitment of the assessed
contributions rates
4. The extent of compliance with the maximum electoral spending
5. The extent of the obligation not to pay bribes of any kind or promise to pay
6. The extent of obligation not to use public facilities or public funds (including NGOs funds) in
publicity activities
Operational and procedural steps for the initiative
"Our voices against your money" initiative will be launched in mid-September 2015, it will
begin with training and qualifying the members of the formed committees in the constituencies"
Committees of the "assassination of electoral funding and spending", field monitoring teams
and information collection teams. The initiative will adhere to the scope of a specific time in
the follow-up process, which is the election campaign period before the first round of
balloting. As well as before the run-off
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