Results in some constituencies in the forthcoming parliamentary elections promise to be a close-run thing, reports Gamal Essam El-Din With almost two weeks before the parliamentary elections, there are growing signs that the contests in some constituencies will be especially fierce. Some of the nine cabinet ministers who have registered as possible candidates for the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) have decided to stand in constituencies dominated by rivals and by supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, promising some dramatic battles ahead. One case in point is that of Minister of Local Development Abdel-Salam El-Mahgoub, who has registered as a possible NDP candidate in the Alexandria constituency of Al-Raml. El-Mahgoub, who has already begun his campaign, faces a strong challenge from Sobhi Salah, a lawyer and one of eight Muslim Brotherhood MPs from Alexandria. El-Mahgoub has toured the poorest neighbourhoods in the Al-Raml constituency, vowing to modernise the areas if elected. A former intelligence officer and governor of Alexandria between 1995 and 2006, El-Mahgoub has told residents of the Mediterranean city that he is proud to have "secured the renovation of Alexandria, reinstating its old position as the Bride of the Mediterranean." For his part, Salah has said that he is more than ready to fight El-Mahgoub for the seat, insisting that he enjoys massive popularity in Al-Raml. Salah received 117,000 votes in the 2005 parliamentary elections, winning the Al-Raml constituency outright in the first round and without the need for a run-off. Another constituency expected to focus attention in the upcoming elections is Helwan, south of Cairo, where the editor of the weekly paper Al-Osbou, Mustafa Bakri, and Minister of Military Production Sayed Mashaal have registered as candidates. In the 2005 elections, Bakri and Mashaal ran in different constituencies, with Bakri winning the 15 May constituency, part of the Cairo governorate at the time, and Mashaal winning Helwan, in which many state military production factories are located. However, when Helwan was separated from Cairo in summer 2008, becoming a governorate in its own right, Bakri's 15 May constituency was abolished, with the Helwan governorate now including the two parliamentary constituencies of Helwan and Maadi. Bakri then announced he was ready to fight Mashaal for Helwan, the contest between the two men flaring up when Bakri toured poorer areas in Helwan over recent weeks and accused Mashaal of mobilising workers in Helwan factories to serve his election campaign. In response, Mashaal attacked Bakri, saying that the latter man was "a newcomer to Helwan who clearly lacks popularity there." Bakri has exploited the fact that "he is a journalist and media man to spread lies about the election," Mashaal said. The elections will also be fiercely fought in other constituencies where rival candidates belong to old political families. This is the case in the Nile Delta governorate of Menoufiya, for example, where members of the family of president Hosni Mubarak and of that of his predecessor Anwar El-Sadat face an uphill battle. In the Shebin Al-Kom constituency, the capital of the Menoufiya governorate, Amin Mubarak, cousin of the president and former chairman of parliament's Industry Committee, is vying for the NDP nomination with the brother of Minister of Education Ahmed Zaki Badr. Mubarak lost to Muslim Brotherhood candidate Ragab Abu Zeid in the 2005 elections, a blow which prompted him to announce that he would no longer stand for election to parliament. However, in the 2010 elections Mubarak was apparently urged to register as the NDP candidate in Shebin Al-Kom, only to find that the minister of education's brother also wants the NDP's nomination. Whichever of the two men is finally selected, the NDP candidate will face an uphill battle against the Muslim Brotherhood's Abu Zeid. Also in Menoufiya, this time in the industrial district of Quesna, Mohamed Mubarak, another of the president's cousins and a former military officer, has announced that he will be running for election as an independent and not as an NDP candidate. The main threat to Mubarak is expected to come from the Muslim Brotherhood's Eissa Abdel-Ghaffar, who won the Quesna seat in 2005 with 170,000 votes. In the Tala constituency, also part of the Menoufiya governorate, Mohamed, Talaat, Effat and Zein, the four sons of Esmat El-Sadat, brother of the late president Anwar El-Sadat, have kicked off their campaigns for election over the past few weeks. Mohamed and Talaat are running as independents, while Effat and Zein, both businessmen, are competing with each other for the NDP nomination. Talaat has accused Ahmed Ezz, NDP secretary for organisational affairs and chairman of the parliamentary Budget Committee, of urging brothers Effat and Zein to register as NDP candidates in order to sow division within the Sadat family. "The NDP leaders believe they can sow division within the Sadat family by forcing my brother to run against me," Talaat said. "But the final say on who will be Tala's new MP should be left to its residents, who should be allowed to go to the polls without harassment." Talaat El-Sadat has been a ferocious critic of both President Hosni Mubarak and his son Gamal since he became an MP in 2005. He was sentenced to one year in prison in 2008, when a military court found him guilty of insulting the Egyptian army on an Arab satellite television channel. Talaat has also been a sharp critic of tycoon Ahmed Ezz, accusing him of exploiting his position to promote his business interests, particularly in the steel market. For his part, Effat has said that he was asked by NDP leaders to stand against his brother in the elections. "This was the party's wishes. It was never my plan to run for election in Tala," he said, adding that Mrs Jihan El-Sadat, the widow of the late president, was "very happy when she found out that I had registered my name as an NDP candidate." "She believes that I, rather than Talaat, am the right man to be the MP for the Tala constituency, which contains the village of Meit Abul-Kom, birthplace of Anwar El-Sadat." Mrs El-Sadat has several times said that she has been irritated by Talaat's attacks on President Mubarak and Gamal Mubarak in parliament. The contest in the Al-Bagour constituency in Menoufiya also promises to be fierce. In this constituency, Kamal El-Shazli, a former minister of legal and parliamentary affairs and a member of the NDP's Policies Committee, has been awarded the NDP nomination, even though he is suffering from a serious illness. Although El-Shazli has been the MP for Al-Bagour since 1964 without interruption, ill health could cause him to lose the seat this time round and effectively end his political career. El-Shazli has refused to allow his son Moataz to stand as the NDP candidate in Al-Bagour in his place, insisting that his health is good enough to win the district. El-Shazli's main rival will be Mohamed Kamel, a Wafd Party millionaire, who has claimed that the 2005 elections in Al-Bagour were rigged in El-Shazli's favour. Kamel's brother Ibrahim has also announced plans to stand in the Menoufiya Menouf constituency against NDP tycoon Ahmed Ezz, Mohamed Kamel having been the Menouf MP in the 1990-1995 parliament. In the Nile Delta governorate of Gharbiya neighbouring Menoufiya, there promises to be a fierce battle in the Kafr El-Zayat constituency. Mohamed El-Baradei, son of governor of Damietta Fathi El-Baradei, has registered as the possible NDP candidate in the constituency. Fathi El-Baradei, a cousin of the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed El-Baradei, was NDP MP for Kafr Al-Zayat in the 1995-2000 parliament. Mohamed El-Baradei, an engineer, is a member of the NDP's Policies Committee, which is chaired by Gamal Mubarak. He faces fierce competition from Talaat Abdel-Qawi, a former NDP MP in the 2000-2005 parliament. In Cairo itself, various constituencies are likely to see stiff competition between rival candidates. In Shubra, Rami Lakah, a businessman and the Wafd Party candidate, is slated to face Mohamed Guweili, an old guard NDP politician and chairman of the parliamentary Complaints Committee. In the downtown Cairo constituency of Al-Azbakiya, Khaled El-Assiuti, a Coptic businessman has registered as the NDP candidate. If he is selected, he will face an uphill battle against various independent candidates.
