The High Elections Committee (HEC) announced Monday that five international organizations have been approved to monitor Egypt’s upcoming parliamentary elections in March.

According to the HEC statement, the five organizations are Democracy International, the Global Network for Rights and Development, the International Institute for Peace Justice and Human Rights, the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa, and the Ecumenical Alliance for Human Rights and Development. The five organizations will send a total of 790 observers, and will be accompanied by 180 translators.  

Sixty-three local organizations have also been approved, for a total of 97,000 observers. The full list of local organizations can be found here. According to HEC, the list includes the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights and the Maat Foundation for Peace Development and Human Rights.

Following its observation of Egypt’s 2014 presidential elections, Democracy International’s president Eric Bjornlund said, “Egypt’s repressive political environment made a genuinely democratic presidential election impossible. He also described the political context “hugely troubling.”

The African Union (AU) is expected to send fifty to sixty observers, according to the ministry of foreign affairs. The AU also observed Egypt’s presidential elections, saying that they were conducted in a
“context of a constrained political and security atmosphere.” It added, however, that “the technical conduct of the 2014 Presidential Election in the Arab Republic of Egypt was overall acceptable.”

The European Union had previously announced it will not be sending a full observation mission as it did during presidential elections. Instead, it will be sending a smaller expert mission to report on the polls. The Carter Center, which has since closed its Cairo office, also confirmed it will not be monitoring the elections.

The deadline for civil society organizations to submit an application to observe Egypt’s parliamentary elections was January 20. The HEC is continuing to receive applications from non-civil society organizations.