Despite opposition attacks the People's Assembly will today pass a law regulating Egypt's first ever presidential elections, reports Gamal Essam El-Din The People's Assembly is today expected to pass a law regulating Egypt's first-ever presidential elections. The 60-article law, the subject of a week's intensive debate in both the People's Assembly and Shura Council, follows the constitutional amendment allowing multi-candidate presidential elections. According to Parliamentary Speaker Fathi Sorour, while the amendment of Article 76 lays out the broad outlines of Egypt's first-ever presidential elections, the new law tackles the details of the procedure. President Hosni Mubarak is expected to refer the law to the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) on Saturday for a final ruling on its constitutionality within 15 days. If ruled unconstitutional by the SCC the law will be referred back to the People's Assembly to be amended in compliance with the court's order. The opposition parties, which criticised the restrictions on candidacy contained in the original amendment and called for a boycott of the 25 May referendum, are again up in arms. The law, they argue, is as bad as the amendment. It shows that the ruling party remains unwilling to abandon its monopoly on power, and is intent on making it impossible for opposition and independent candidates to run against President Mubarak in September's presidential elections, said Wafd Party spokesman Fouad Badrawi. The law aims to regulate campaigning, funding and the monitoring of the poll, entrusting the implementation of its provisions to a presidential election committee comprised of five judges and five public figures. The five judges include the chairman of the Supreme Constitutional Court and its most senior deputy, the chairman of Cairo's Appeal Court, and two senior judges from the Court of Cassation and the State Council. The five public figures, who are required to swear to undertake their duties "with all the required honesty, integrity, and impartiality", will be named once the law is ruled constitutional. The committee's duties include "declaring the nomination and campaigning period, receiving and examining the nomination requests, ensuring that all candidates have an equal access to state- run television and radio, supervising all procedures of voting and vote-counting and announcing the election results." The law prohibits candidates from campaigning in places of worship or public buildings, and sets an LE10 million ceiling on campaign expenditure. Candidates will receive LE500,000 each from the state towards the cost of their campaigns and in a run-off situation an additional LE200,000. Candidates are entitled to accept donations from Egyptians as long as they do not exceed LE200,000. Campaign accounts will be examined by the Central Auditing Agency (CAA), to which candidates are obliged to submit a breakdown of campaign expenses. The law prohibits the international monitoring of presidential elections in Egypt. "There might be international observers but not monitors, and they will have no role in supervising elections," Sorour added. While members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) rallied behind the law, describing it as a great step, opposition MPs argued it was undemocratic and aimed mostly at perpetuating the NDP's grip on power. According to Talaat El-Sadat, an opposition MP belonging to the Liberal Party, the law does not ensure transparency. "It bans the international monitoring necessary to convince the world that Egypt's presidential elections will be fair," said El-Sadat, a nephew of the late president, Anwar El-Sadat, who announced this week that he intends to stand in the elections. US President George W Bush has repeatedly suggested Egypt allow international monitoring but this is something to which there is a great deal of public opposition, argued Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit. Ayman Nour, the chairman of Al-Ghad Party, suggested the law only pays lip service to equal access to state-run television and radio. "Opposition candidates," he said, "are certain to be denied the kind of access enjoyed by President Mubarak and his family." In response, the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Kamal El-Shazli said that TV news coverage of President Mubarak would not skew the media in favour of any candidate. "This coverage is based on the fact that Mubarak is the president of the republic, not that he is the NDP's presidential candidate," said El-Shazli. Nour told Al-Ahram Weekly that the NDP's insistence on banning international monitoring and foreign funding reflects a kind of double standard. "The NDP government," said Nour, "does not feel shy about receiving huge sums of cash from any number of foreign countries and institutions but when it comes to democratic practices it says this represents meddling in internal affairs." Nour insists that his campaign will not require any foreign funding. "Funding is not a problem, it is equal access to the mass media that matters most to me and my party," Nour said. The trial of Nour, who is charged with forging the signatures necessary to obtain an official licence for his party, opens next week. The law does not prevent citizens with dual nationality, or those who have failed to complete military service, from contesting the elections. In failing to do so, claimed Badrawi, it opens the door for people with dual Israeli or American- Egyptian nationality to become future presidents of Egypt. In this respect, responded Sorour, the law complies with the constitution which does not ban citizens with dual nationality from exercising full political rights. Opposition MPs also warned that staging the election in one day leaves it vulnerable to irregularities. The presidential elections will be open to the same kind of irregularities and NDP-sponsored acts of thuggery that marred the referendum, said Nasserist MP Hamdeen Sabahi. Next week parliament is scheduled to debate a series of laws regulating the performance of political parties, the People's Assembly, Shura Council and parliamentary elections.
