Egyptian-general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s efforts to lend legitimacy to parliamentary elections scheduled for this spring have gotten off to a murky start with the appointment of a controversial, reportedly United Arab Emirates-backed, human rights NGO as one of five foreign election monitors.

The appointment of Norway-based Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD) alongsidefour other foreign and 63 local NGOs,followed statements by the European Union and the Carter Center that they would not be monitoring the Egyptian parliamentary election in March and April. The Egyptian foreign ministry said the African Union would be sending 50 monitors. International NGO’s complained that they were given only a week to enter bids for the monitoring of this spring’s election.

GNRD has in the last year taken partisan stands by seeking to thwart Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup, promoting the autocratic UAE as a model of adherence to human rights and backing Al-Sisi despite his poor human rights record and brutal crackdown on his opponents.

…James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, a syndicated columnist, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with the same title.