Celebrating its ‘Arab Spring’ and free elections, Egypt is all set to emulate some of the best election management practices of India.
Egypt has also evinced keen interest in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) used in India and would be studying them for use in their country in future elections.
Egypt’s Secretary General of Supreme Election Committee Hatem Bagato, who is here on a three-day visit to India, will sign an MoU with Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath on Tuesday.
The visit is aimed at helping Egypt establish a functioning democratic system after studying the best practices adopted by other nations during elections.
Besides exchange of election management techniques, the Election Commission of India will also support Egypt in building resources of its poll personnel and provide training to them at the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIDEM), which has already provided training to officials engaged in elections in a number of countries across the world.
“As Egyptian government is keen on introducing Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) during its elections in future, the visit will provide an opportunity to observe one of the advanced and widely practiced systems in the world,” said a senior poll official.
Bagato will also discuss with CEC other issues like exchange of ideas and future cooperation in the field of election management between the two nations.
I feel proud to hear that India and Egypt are working together to build and enhance
Egypt's election management practices. It is important that established democracies,
like India and the US, support and encourage other new-born, burgeoning
democracies.
There was a time in India elections were conducted in a day and results were announced within 24 hours after the polling. There was no electronic machines and the results were announced within 24 hours. Now we have electonic machines and voter identification cards. But polling was conducted in several dates and stages within a state and among the states in national elections. The results were announced similarly in different stages within a period of one to two months. Can we improve the election process? Can the elections be conducted simultaneously in one day and results are declared within 24 hours throughout the country, just like it is done in the UK or the US? There is no dearth of staff to conduct the elections in India in one day, but there are plenty of politicians to roam the country switching their political message from place to place, according to the election schedule that suit the convenience of politicians and not of the people or the country.
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