Egypt blogs show footage alleging ballot stuffing

Cynthia Johnston

CAIRO: Egyptian blogs have published amateur video footage purporting to show ballot stuffing and vote fraud in a nationwide referendum on constitutional amendments which opposition groups say was rigged.

Egypt says it won 76 percent approval in Monday's vote for the amendments, which give the state powerful tools that could be used to drive opposition Islamists from politics. Rights groups say the changes are a step backward for freedom.

A handful of video clips, most of which appear to be taken by mobile phone cameras and circulated on Egyptian blogs and Web sites, contain some of the first images of alleged fraud in the vote and could reinforce the accusations of vote fixing.

Egypt says turnout in the referendum was 27 percent. But all main opposition groups boycotted the vote and rights groups said the real turnout was much lower. The independent Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights estimated that just 5 percent of registered voters took part.

In one of three clips viewed by Reuters, a man purported to be an election official in the Nile Delta appears to mark names on a voter list, then folds a pile of ballots and stuffs them into a transparent vote box. A close-up of one of the ballots shows it is marked with a "Yes" vote.

Another grainy video shows a man marking piles of blank ballots with "Yes" votes. In a third clip, which appears to be taken from a distance with a zoom lens, workers at a school are seen shuffling through ballots and folding them, while another person collects them and takes them out of sight of the camera.

"The overwhelming amount of evidence points in the direction of fraud. I doubt anyone needed to doctor or make up evidence," said Ghada Shahbender of the civil monitoring group Shayfeencom, which means "We are Watching You" in Arabic.

"At least some of them are valid. Some of them are very simple. They are not doctored. They are not edited," she added.

Justice Ministry officials declined immediate comment.

VIDEOS AUTHENTIC?

The videos all appear to take place in schools, where polling places were sited. Analysts said they seemed authentic and were consistent with reports by rights groups.

"They look legitimate, look possible. It does look like a schoolroom. The ballot boxes do look like that," said Issandr el-Amrani, an independent analyst who re-posted two of the fraud videos on his blog, www.arabist.net.

Several of the videos were originally posted on YouTube by a prominent Egyptian blogger, Wael Abbas, before being picked up by others. Abbas was also involved in posting videos of purported torture by Egyptian police officers that sparked an outcry late last year.

Abbas, who says he vets the videos he receives for authenticity, said he had received five clips purporting to show vote fraud, and had so far posted three of them. But he said his were not the only videos circulating on the Web.

Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based consultant for Human Rights Watch, said the reports and images purporting fraud raised "serious concerns" about the validity of the referendum, although he was more concerned about the content of the changes to the constitution itself.

The amendments allow Mubarak, who has been in power since 1981, to dissolve parliament unilaterally and weaken judicial oversight of elections that have been marred by irregularities.

The amendments also enshrine in the constitution a ban on parties based on religion, give authorities wide powers of arrest and surveillance, and make it easier to refer terrorism suspects to military courts known for swift verdicts.