* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
It’s the second day of the Elections Reporting course in Morocco and the conversation is heating up between the journalists. They are discussing the different types of voting abuses and violations that could take place in any election – and their examples all came from Morocco’s previous elections.
“I swear to you there was this one place where the polling station was actually in a mosque. It’s unbelievable! This clearly violates a ban on using religion in election campaigning,” one radio journalist said – to which we all shook our heads in disbelief.
Conversations like this one are not unique to me. I’ve heard them here in Morocco, in Sudan and just last month in Egypt where I also helped run a similar course for their Egyptian colleagues.
Although Thomson Reuters Foundation has been delivering this training for years in the Middle East and North Africa, these last string of courses come on the heels of an Arab wave of popular uprisings for more freedoms. And whatever the theme of training held this year in the Arab region – whether it’s human rights or HIV AIDs or general news writing skills, the events that are boiling on the streets and in squares are smack in the middle of my anecdotes, examples and yes –even training material.
In fact, it is due to such uprisings that I am in Morocco giving an Elections Reporting course, just two months ahead of parliamentary elections that were bumped up to November this year following major constitutional reforms brought about by pressure from the street.
On the opposite side of the North African coast, Egypt is also bracing for its early parliamentary elections also to be held in November. I start thinking of the next Elections course I’m giving there….
I glance back at the group and think of the task they have ahead of them and the work they need to do to cultivate contacts and ask the right questions. They will get a chance to do that during our field visit to the National Council for Human Rights, which will be coordinating the election observation.
The work is immense, and we all roll up our sleeves for what lies ahead.
