In Egypt, Coalition Blended Theater, Debate to Get Out the Vote

As Egypt prepared for parliamentary elections last month, Partners in Change (PIC), a coalition of 27 grassroots organizations, conducted an innovative voter education and get-out-the-vote campaign.

The "Participation is our Duty" campaign for Egypt's lower house, the People's Assembly, included candidate debates and street theater performances in nine governorates across the country. PIC used techniques similar to those used before Egypt's June elections for the Shoura Council, parliament's upper house. At that time, the coalition drew national attention for conducting Egypt's first ever candidate debate, as well as a voter education program that reached 6,000 voters through town hall meetings. PIC also organized an election day citizen monitoring effort that sent a total of 270 volunteer observers to 27 voting districts across 10 of 29 governorates. They reported their findings live on the coalition's online radio broadcast, which drew 10,000 visitors.

Building on the success of the June campaign, the coalition added an interactive theater component to its voter education activities for the Nov. 28 parliamentary polls. The theater piece, performed free around the country, focused on electoral irregularities such as vote buying and intimidation, and offered solutions for citizens, such as going to the polls in small groups to deter intimidation, and ways to report incidents to authorities.

PIC actors perform their GOTV theater piece.

The events kicked off with a candidate debate and street theater performance in Minya on Nov. 18, followed by similar events in seven other governorates on Nov. 19. The performances drew large crowds, followed by debates that included candidates from the ruling National Democratic Party, opposition parties and independents. To complement the debates and performances, PIC developed and distributed to attendees an educational comic book explaining the importance of voting, procedures for obtaining a voting card and how to vote.

On election day, PIC conducted an election observation effort with 270 trained observers, who sometimes were not allowed into polling stations. Both observers and voters called in live reports about possible election law violations that were available via streaming video and online radio for audiences both in Egypt and abroad. In addition, citizens, candidates and party officials contacted the radio station on election day with news or observations about the vote.

PIC is led by three NDI partner organizations: the Assiut Human Rights Association, the Justice and Citizenship Center for Human Rights, and Our Community for Development Association. The organizations came together in 2008 while working on projects throughout Egypt to engage citizens in local government by monitoring and reporting on local council activities, conducting informal polls on citizens' needs and hosting roundtables for council members to meet with citizens. Based on their shared citizen participation goal and complementary grassroots networks, the organizations formed a coalition to reach more citizens. To prevent the infighting and disputes that have unraveled some civil society coalitions in Egypt, NDI helped the partners draft a memorandum of understanding, signed July 6, 2009, that defined the responsibilities of each organization. Then the three partners recruited an additional 24 organizations, expanding their network to cover 10 of the 29 governorates.

The coalition plans to continue the voter education campaign to help voters stay prepared and educated in the lead-up to Egypt's presidential election, scheduled for September 2011.

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Pictured above: Egyptian candidate debate organized by Partners in Change

Published December 14, 2010