Arabs Observe an Arab Election

For the elections held in Yemen in September, representatives from four countries launched the first mission to observe an Arab election by other Arabs.

“The delegation was part of a growing mass of Arab reformers who insist on blazing the trail and moving forward,” wrote Oussama K. Safa and Kahlil Gebara in an article for The Daily Star of Lebanon titled “In Yemen, a First: Arabs Observing an Arab Election.”

Safa, the general director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, and Gebara, co-executive director of the Lebanese Transparency Association, are both recipients of Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) grants, and the election monitoring mission to Yemen was partially funded by MEPI.

The delegation, which included representatives from Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority, worked in coordinated with other international observers, and received “high acclaim from Yemeni civil society and election officials alike,” according to The Daily Star article.

All the delegation members were experienced in election monitoring, Safa and Gebara wrote, and “their action in Yemen testified to the coming of age of Arab civil society and its increasing capacity to undertake pro-democracy work in neighboring countries.”