Student Union elections have become a microcosm of national polls outside the campus, reports Karim El-Khashab Student Union elections are not dissimilar to parliamentary elections, the recent trade union vote, syndicate and, even, sporting club elections. The common feature is intervention by the security apparatus, outbreaks of violence, and an articulation of the ongoing struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the state. When the final lists of candidates for student elections at Cairo, Ain Shams and Helwan Universities were announced at 7pm on Wednesday, 1 November by the universities' administration, protests erupted immediately over the absence of the names of 200 mostly Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated candidates. The reaction of Ahmed Kamal, a third year law student and himself a candidate, was typical. "Why won't they just let the students decide for themselves who is fit and who isn't?" he asked. As the protests continued, security forces intervened to break them up and prevent demonstrators from moving outside the campuses. Brotherhood members and leftist activists claimed that many in the small protest were injured as the police attempted to cordon off protesters. Some students attempted to storm the gate of the Giza campus, damaging the entrance before Ali Abdel-Rahman, head of Cairo University, intervened and promised to meet a delegation of students the next day to discuss their grievances. The scenes came a day after violent clashes between Brotherhood and NDP candidates at Ain Shams University. Abdel-Rahman met students on Thursday, as the vote was taking place. With Brotherhood members boycotting the vote, and many others in solidarity, turnout was low, leading to many elections being re- run on Sunday with the university administration posting candidates in order to make up required numbers. "The Brotherhood claims to have all this support but where are they now? We left the door open to them and they couldn't do anything. They are just doing all this for hype. They're full of empty slogans," complained Khaled Mustafa, a second year engineering major standing in the elections. State security officials meanwhile reiterated what has become their longstanding disclaimer: they do not intervene in university affairs except when the safety of students is at risk, then, they are obliged to act. During their meeting with Abdel-Rahman, protesters presented him with a list of complaints over the running of elections, restrictions placed on other student activities and the refusal to allow certain students onto the premises of the university hostel. Ahmed Zaghloul, a fifth year medical student and Brotherhood member who attended the meeting said "the dean was very generous with us and promised that if any irregularities were found in the election process, the elections would be rerun." He told Al-Ahram Weekly, "it made no sense that candidate registration be held on just one day and with no transparency," adding that intervention by the security forces is the norm on campuses. "When 29 candidates from the Faculty of Pharmacy and 15 from the Law Faculty are prevented from running, and each is a Brotherhood candidate, it is clear what is happening," he said. Few of those attending the meeting with Abdel-Rahman believe that it will do anything for, as Zaghloul points out, "it is state security that has the upper hand on campus not the university authorities." That certainly appeared to be the case when on Monday morning 20 Brotherhood members were reported to have been detained in a dawn security swoop, alongside members of the family of 10 others who were not at home when the police arrived. While the Interior Ministry denies that anyone has been arrested, the families of those detained have gathered on the university campus to demand Abdel-Rahman keep his promises and the students be released. "This is how things operate here on campus, they will not allow the students to have a free choice," said Mona, the sister of one of the students arrested . Emad Mubarak, executive director of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, which has worked with students in this and previous elections, confirmed that he had received calls from families as well as the Brotherhood to report the arrests, and the numbers involved are higher than the 20 students commonly cited. Nor, he says, is there anything new in the tactics of the security forces. Many of the problems, he believes, are a result of the vagueness of the 1979 Student Charter. "It is because it is so vague that state security has found it so easy to intervene in every aspect of student life," says Mubarak. Candidates, according to the charter, must display "good behaviour and a sound reputation". They are formulations the vagueness of which is easily manipulated to bar candidates of which the regime disapproves. It was in response to such long-standing manipulation of campus political life that students announced their intention to set up a parallel Free Union. This, says Mubarak, is why security is cracking down so hard on students now; it is an attempt to intimidate candidates from standing in the alternative elections. Those, says Zaghloul, will be held on campus "with Brotherhood and non-Brotherhood candidates running". "We will conduct the elections as they should be, with no one banned from running, using transparent ballot boxes and with members of the teachers association supervising". Some 500 candidates have nominated themselves so far. The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression has also helped the students to draft their own charter, a document on which university authorities have so far refused to comment. Despite the furore surrounding the elections the student body as a whole has displayed little interest and voter turnout is once again low. "What goes on outside the university is mirrored inside. The security and administration have created a vacuum on campuses and students are frightened away from politics," says Mubarak. "We see the same things that occur in parliamentary elections here, candidates cosying up to the state and using thugs to intimidate other candidates, a complete lack of transparency and clear security interference."
