The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) welcomes the decision of the High Election Commission (HEC) regarding the international civil society organizations' upcoming parliamentary elections' follow-up in 2013. The decision included allowing foreign civil society organizations and international organizations working in the area of election follow-up, human rights, support for democracy, foreign election bodies and commissions to follow up the Lower House elections for 2013; according to a set of controls.

The decision included a set of controls for electoral observation such as obtaining observation accreditations from HEC in order to follow up the procedures of updating voter lists, nomination, campaigning, voting, sorting, counting and declaration of results. The observers will not be allowed to affect the electoral process or influence voters. They are not allowed to promote any of the candidates or take any kinds of gifts from any of the candidates or their supporters.

An experienced international civil society organization with good repetition, famous of transparency and fairness, must submit an application to HEC to obtain accreditation for following up the parliamentary elections.

Mr. Hafez Abu Seada, the head of EOHR, stated that the international electoral observation missions play such an important role in the democratic transformation countries like Egypt. He confirmed that the decision of HEC meets the demands of all the Egyptian groups calling for international electoral observation for guaranteeing fair parliamentary elections. ; The Egyptian Constitutional Front called for international electoral observation within its workshop on the recently discussed laws of election and political participation last week. The reports of the international observation missions induce the international recognition of the fairness of the electoral process.