The Special Commission for the Accreditation of Election Observers (SCAEO) held its fourth meeting on Wednesday 4 August 2021, at the Council's headquarters in Rabat, Morocco.

Chaired by Ms. Amina Bouayach, Chairperson of the National Human Rights Council (CNDH), this meeting was an opportunity to continue the deliberation on accreditations requests of associations.

Within this context, the SCAEO decided to:
• Provide accreditation to 15 additional national associations and networks that fulfill all the legal conditions and terms to be qualified to conduct an impartial and independent observation of the upcoming elections;
• Do not continue examining files of six national NGOs that didn’t fulfill their files;
• Follow-up the examination of two NGOs requests that sent their accreditation request within the legal deadlines;
• Delay the examination of seven other NGOs’ files to the next SCAEO meeting.

Regarding election observers nominated by associations, the SCAEO approved their accreditation procedure and ensured that they fulfill the conditions of registration in the electoral lists and not being elections candidate. The SCAEO also stressed the importance of strict respect for personal data obtained in the context of submitting accreditation applications.

The SCAOE is chaired by CNDH Chairperson.

CNDH handled personal data in line with the authorization obtained from the National Commission for Control of Personal Data Protection (CNDP), for the first time, under Law 09-08 on the protection of persons regarding handling personal data.

Furthermore, the SCAOE approved the following recommendations:
• Accredited NGOs and bodies submit earlier the distribution of observers to facilitate the observation process and respect the precautionary measures to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic;
• Adopting the Council as a framework for sharing or applying for information needed by observers in coordination with the accredited associations and networks.

Within the same context, examining the accreditation of international NGOs and bodies was postponed to the next meeting of the SCAOE.

Mrs. Bouayach also stated, at this meeting, that CNDH is ensuring the update of the observation website: https://observationelections.cndh.ma/. This platform contains all legal and regulatory texts related to the electoral process, mainly in Arabic and Amazigh. The latest of which was the decision of the Supreme Council of Audiovisual Communication No. 21-37 on ensuring the plurality of political expression in audiovisual communication, in addition to relevant government decisions.

The SCAOE decided, at its previous meeting, to provide accreditation to 23 NGOs and networks, in addition to CNDH.  The number of national accredited NGOs and networks is so far 38.