Competition for seats on the Shura Council could be intense after large numbers of opposition and Muslim Brotherhood candidates register, Gamal Essam El-Din reports By the time registration for the mid-term Shura Council elections closed on Sunday the number of candidates had reached 576. Intessar Nessim, chairman of Cairo's Court of Appeals and president of the Higher Election Commission (HEC), subsequently announced that just 509 of the hopefuls would actually stand, far fewer than the 564 who competed in the last mid-term contest in 2007. Until Sunday, a total of 76 names had been removed from the list, for reasons that ranged from holding dual nationality, not performing military duty, to being implicated in criminal cases. Moreover, Nessim later announced on Tuesday that eight more candidates belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Constitutional and Wafd parties were removed from the list. Nessim disclosed that during the first three days of registration, between 5 and 7 May, just 346 had been put forward. "On Sunday, the last day of registration 230 candidates came forward, pushing the total to 576." Nessim expects that the number of eligible candidates will be further reduced after the window for appeals and complaints closes next Sunday. "Specialised judicial panels will take charge of scrutinising appeals filed against candidates and by next week we should be in a position to publish a final list," says Nessim. If everything goes according to plan, Shura election campaigns should be able to kick off by the middle of next week. The elections will be held in 67 districts across all governorates, with the exception of Ismailia and Al-Wadi Al-Gadid, and result in the return of 88 deputies. Twenty-one districts will elect two deputies, with the remaining 46 districts choosing a single representative. The majority of last day registrations belong to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Observers agree that the last-minute registration of NDP candidates was a deliberate tactic, aimed at preventing members not selected from running independently. On Sunday morning, the NDP's Safwat El-Sherif met with party chairman President Hosni Mubarak to present him with a final list of NDP candidates. "Those standing were selected democratically by the party's internal electoral colleges and opinion polls," said El-Sherif, adding that "President Mubarak had ordered that the HEC be given free rein in supervising the elections." A total of 600 NDP members, said El-Sherif, competed to win the party's official nomination. "However," El-Sherif explained, "the party decided to select just 92 candidates to compete in 88 districts." Four districts, one each in the governorates of Marsa Matrouh, Aswan, the Red Sea and Gharbiya, will see NDP affiliated candidate in competition. "The NDP decided to field two candidates in each of these four districts," said El-Sherif, "and they will have to compete to win seats." The party's official list of candidates includes 35 new faces. It also includes three Coptic candidates, one cabinet minister (Minister of Religious Endowments Hamdi Zaqzouq) and one woman. Ahmed Ezz, the NDP secretary for organisational affairs, met with Pope Shenouda on 4 May. Ezz said that during the two and a half hour meeting he told Pope Shenouda that, "the NDP is very keen that its list of candidates for elections includes Copts. It is part of our strategy to strengthen the principle of citizenship and encourage Copts to participate more actively in political life." The biggest surprise about the nominations has been the registration of 14 candidates belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Three of the 14 are already members of the People's Assembly. Nessim indicated that the HEC had intervened to enable as many as 14 independents (most of them are believed to be Brotherhood nominees) to register. Members of the People's Assembly, he explained, are legally allowed to run in Shura Council elections. The majority of Brotherhood candidates are slated to run in the governorate of Alexandria and the Nile Delta governorates of Gharbiya, Beheira, Daqahliya, Qalioubiya and Sharqiya. Essam El-Erian, a leading Brotherhood official, says the outlawed group exploited the fact that some of its members enjoy parliamentary immunity to ask them to register for the Shura elections. "Their parliamentary immunity allowed them to escape arrest and other arbitrary security measures," said El-Erian. El-Erian affirmed that the Brotherhood's long-term slogan "Islam is the solution" will be adopted during the campaign, in spite of warnings that HEC will ban any religious slogans. The Muslim Brotherhood has faced a harsh crackdown in recent months, with El-Erian and Mahmoud Ezz, the deputy supreme guide, both being detained. In the last Shura Council mid-term elections the Brotherhood fielded 19 candidates, none of whom won. The final list also includes 128 party-based candidates, representing 13 legal parties. "This includes 88 NDP candidates and 40 candidates from 12 parties," said Nessim, "with the remaining candidates standing as independents." The liberal-oriented Wafd Party and leftist Tagammu are fielding 23 candidates. The Al-Ahram analyst Amr Elshobky believes that, "the initial list of candidates suggests that the Shura elections this year could be competitive." "We can only hope that Brotherhood and opposition names are not removed from the list of candidates before the polls open, that the security forces do not interfere in elections and that the HEC supervises the entire process, from beginning to end."
