Professor Hanna-El-Daher goes to Chad on an Election Observation Mission

AGS professor Ambassador Samira Hanna-El-Daher was one of the election observers in Chad during the last legislative elections on February 13, as a member of the delegation of the International Organization of the Francophonie (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie).

Durnig her assignment which extended from February 8-16, she worked in cooperation with the other election monitoring missions there: that of the European Union, that of the African Union, and the small delegation of the UNDP (United Nations Development Program). She met with the President of the Chad Republic, the Chadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and officials from the National Electoral Commission and the HCC (High Council of Communication).

On the day of the elections she went with another election observer to some of the polling stations in the North of the country outside of N'Djanema: "What was striking and made the election process particularly difficult is the very high illiteracy rate especially outside of the capital city. Most voters could not read the ballots and did not even know how to hold a pen to mark a cross next to a name. But overall from what I saw the elections went well with no outburst of violence".

Ambassador Hanna-El-Daher is a member of the AGS faculty along with her position as Representative of Lebanon to the Executive Board of UNESCO. She is a career diplomat who was the first woman in Lebanon to be named Ambassador, and the first woman worldwide to be an Ambassador in Japan. She also served as Head of Mission in China, Australia, and Great Britain, Ambassador to the Philippines, Switzerland, and Cyprus, as well as Consul General in New York and Legal Advisor of the Lebanese Permanent Mission to the United Nations.