The ruling party's victory in mid-term Shura elections surprised no one,writes Gamal Essam El-Din The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) emerged victorious in last week's run-offs in the mid-term Shura Council elections. With major opposition parties boycotting the poll and the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood failing to win a single seat in the first round, the NDP rode to victory, winning 14 seats in the second round of balloting. NDP members running independently won two seats. In the final tally 84 out of 88 seats went to NDP candidates, three were taken by NDP members running as independents, and one seat went to the opposition leftist Tagammu Party. Since the three independent winners are expected to rejoin NDP ranks, the party's leaders have been quick to boast they took 99 per cent of the seats. The Shura Council meets on Sunday to elect a speaker and two deputies in the first of three procedural sessions following the completion of the mid-term poll. Future sessions will see the swearing-in of new members and the election of the chairmen of nine Shura Council committees. Safwat El-Sherif, NDP secretary- general, is expected to be re-elected as speaker for a fourth term. Mohamed Mursi, deputy chairman of the General Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions, is also expected to be re-elected as deputy speaker. Mohamed Abdel-Reheim Nafie, the current chairman of the Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee, is tipped to become second deputy speaker. President Hosni Mubarak will meet NDP Shura Council members next Saturday. Mubarak will appoint 44 additional council members, bringing the number of newly elected and appointed members to 132. No official presidential statement had been issued concerning appointees by the time Al-Ahram Weekly went to press though at least 16 currently appointed figures are expected to be given renewed terms. They include El-Sherif and Mursi; former prime minister Atef Ebeid; Interior Minister Habib Al-Adli, Minister of Labour Aisha Abdel-Hadi; former transportation minister Suleiman Metwalli and prominent businessman Mohamed Farid Khamis. Khamis is also expected to be re- appointed as chairman of the council's Industrial Production and Energy Committee. The list also includes Rifaat El-Said, chairman of Tagammu Party, and three other party chairmen -- Osama Shaltout (Al-Takaful), Abdel-Moneim El-Assar (Green Party) and Mohamed Farid Zakaria (Al-Ahrar). The historians Abdel-Azim Ramadan and Younan Labib Rizq are also expected to be re-appointed. Some old-time Shura Council appointees are braced to lose their seats. These include Ibrahim Nafie, former chief editor of Al-Ahram, Samir Ragab, former chief editor of Al-Gomhuriya and Mamdouh Ismail, shipping magnate and owner of the ferry which sank in the Red Sea last year killing more than 1,300 passengers. The NDP's sweeping victory in the run-off elections was never in doubt after the 19 candidates fielded by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood in the first round on 11 June failed to win a single seat. Brotherhood officials claim that security forces were mobilised to prevent voters from reaching polling stations, and that the stations in constituencies where the Brotherhood had fielded candidates were closed early. The run-off elections became a battle between official NDP candidates and NDP members running as independents, evidence, says political analyst Mohamed El-Sayed Said, of the regime's determination to backtrack on political reform. "The NDP's only concern was to obliterate the Muslim Brothers, regardless of what this cost in terms of the integrity and fairness of the vote." In the run-off poll, 31 candidates battled for 16 seats in 11 governorates. A day before the second poll Ahmed Bayoumi, the NDP's candidate in the Cairo district of Qasr Al-Nil, won uncontested after Fathi Abdel-Aal, an NDP member running independently, withdrew from the contest. The two NDP members standing as independents who went on to win seats are Salah Shaltout, in the Al-Ghanayem district of Assiut, and Ihab Abdel-Azim, in the Maghagha district of Minya. In the wake of the poll, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack expressed "deep concern" over the irregularities which marred the first round of the Shura Council elections. Restricting the role of judges in monitoring elections was singled out for particular criticism, provoking Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit to lash out against US meddling in Egypt's domestic affairs. Abul-Gheit is due to visit Washington next month. Welcoming the results of the run-off round, NDP officials said their resounding victory would facilitate the council's work. El-Sherif revealed that the devolution of power to local councils, and ways to tackle the financial and administrative problems facing national press organisations, will top the Shura Council's agenda in its next session, scheduled to begin in November.
