Candidate lists for next month's Shura Council elections will be monopolised by the NDP, reports Gamal Essam El-Din Registration of candidates for the mid- term Shura Council elections began yesterday and will continue until Sunday. The first round of elections for Egypt's consultative upper house parliament will take place on 11 June, with run-offs a week later. Elections are being held in 24 of Egypt's 26 governorates, where candidates will battle to fill 88 seats in 67 districts. An additional 44 members of the 264-seat council will be appointed by a presidential decree. Secretary-General of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) Safwat El-Sherif said the NDP will be contesting all 88 constituencies. The party's list of candidates, approved by President Hosni Mubarak in his capacity as NDP chairman, was announced on Tuesday. Nominees were selected by the party's electoral colleges. A special commission formed by Mubarak last week had the final say on the names put forward. El-Sherif said 750 party members, including businessmen, former MPs and members of local city councils, had asked to be considered. The final choice was determined by reputation, popularity, partisan commitment, hard work and a proven track record of public performance. Among the party's candidates are businessmen such as Mohamed El-Masoud (Cairo, Qasr Al-Nil and Boulaq), Mohamed El-Rawass (Cairo, Sayeda Zeinab), Mohamed Farag Amer (Alexandria, Manshiya) and Zaki El-Sewedy (Sharqiya, Darb Negm). The list also includes Minister of Petroleum Sameh Fahmi in the Suez governorate, Hani Seif El-Nasr, manager of the Social Fund for Development, in the Upper Egypt governorate of Fayoum, Samir Zaher, chairman of the Egyptian Football Federation, in Damietta and former minister of manpower Ahmed Al-Amawy in Hadayeq Al-Qubba. Next week the NDP will stage public rallies in several governorates during which, says El-Sherif, "NDP candidates will review President Mubarak's election programme in 2005, focussing on the advances already made." Leaders of major opposition parties confirmed last week that they would boycott the elections. In a public rally held in Zagazig, capital of the Delta governorate of Sharqiya, last Thursday, Wafd Party leader Mahmoud Abaza launched a scathing attack against the NDP and Shura elections. Abaza said Egypt's political life had become a toy in the hands of the children of NDP leaders, an allusion to Gamal Mubarak, the 44-year-old son of President Hosni Mubarak. Abaza said the constitutional amendments, rammed through the People's Assembly last March, had sent a clear message: "They tell us that the NDP is determined to continue its monopoly of political life and that the opposition is expected to provide only décor." In such a climate, he added, "it is ludicrous for Wafd or other opposition parties to contest an election the result of which has already been decided." The leftist Nasserist and Tagammu parties have confirmed that they will not be fielding candidates. Both parties argue there is no point campaigning over seats on a council that lacks any serious supervisory or legislative powers. While Nasserist leader Diaaeddin Dawoud says the post-constitutional amendment climate has left his party too frustrated to take part in the poll, Tagammu leader Rifaat El-Said announced his party would content itself to providing political support to any members who do decide to run on a private basis. That leaves the Muslim Brotherhood as the only credible challenger to the NDP. The outlawed group said it remained determined to nominate candidates though Brotherhood leaders refused to provide any names ahead of the poll, fearing nominees could be detained. Opposition parties and Brotherhood MPs both criticised recent amendments to the 1956 law on the exercise of political rights. They objected vociferously to the composition of the committee now tasked with supervising elections which is, they say, heavily biased towards the NDP. Gamal Zahran, an independent MP with leftist leanings, told Al-Ahram Weekly that, "the amendment of the political rights law showed how correct the opposition had been when it charged that it would be done in such a way as to facilitate widespread rigging of the vote." As expected, the make-up of the so- called Supreme Election Commission (SEC) was dictated by the NDP's majority on the Shura Council and in the People's Assembly, said Zahran. "A commission with such a composition can offer no guarantees that elections will be free of fair." Under Article 3 of the new law on the exercise of political rights, the SEC is to be chaired by the head of the Cairo Appeal Court, Adel Andrawess, and includes the chairman of Alexandria's Appeal Court Hassan Suleiman, deputy chairman of the Court of Cassation Mahmoud El-Banna, and deputy chairman of the State Council Mohamed Moussa. The law also gives the People's Assembly and Shura Council the right to name seven additional SEC members. The assembly nominated Ahmed Radwan, a former minister for cabinet affairs, Mohamed Zaki El-Shanawany and Malak Mena, both former chairmen of Cairo's Appeal Court and Ahmed Awad Bilal, dean of Cairo University's Faculty of Law. The Shura Council named Mohamed Ahmed Abu Zeid, a former chairman of Cairo's Appeal Court, Ismail Hassan, a former governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, and Louis Greiss, former editor of the state-owned Sabah Al-Kheir (Good Morning) weekly magazine. The opposition noted that the judicial members of the SEC were all associates of Parliamentary Speaker Fathi Sorour. Worse, said Zahran, the inclusion of Radwan contravened the stipulation that appointees be unaffiliated given "Radwan has been a long member of the NDP". In its first meeting on Monday the SEC began work on finalising the election regulations, including a blanket ban on the use of religious slogans. In the event of any breach of its instructions the SEC will file a case with the Supreme Administrative Court seeking to have the name of those responsible struck from the list of candidates.
