The government seems to be playing both ends against the middle as the Nasserist-Muslim Brotherhood contest over the Bar Association comes to a head this week. Mona El-Nahhas reports Thousands of lawyers will be heading for the polls on Saturday to choose their Bar Association's chairman and 24 Syndicate Council seats. Six candidates are running for chairman; some 274 are vying for the seats. The association has been split along Nasserist-Islamist lines ever since the last elections, four years ago, when Nasserist Sameh Ashour won the chairman's slot, and the council seats mostly ended up going to members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group. Accusations of financial impropriety and poor decision- making have been regularly hurled across the divide since then, and the result has been a marked decline in the council's performance as a whole. If Ashour wins again, and the Islamists retain their edge in the council, the battle will probably rage for another four years. Another option would be for Ashour's rival, Ragai Attiya -- backed this time by the Brotherhood -- to prevail. The pro-government Attiya's loss to Ashour four years ago had much to do with his lack of Brotherhood backing at the time. Ashour has stepped up his calls for the Brotherhood to be denied the opportunity to dominate the forthcoming council. "Lawyers have learned the lesson," Ashour told Al-Ahram Weekly. "I'm absolutely certain the Brotherhood will not get more than five seats in the coming elections." He said the Brotherhood had offered lawyers nothing over the past four years, and that an Islamist-dominated council may even result in the syndicate being placed under judicial sequestration, like it was in 1996. It took five years for the syndicate to obtain a court ruling in its favour, and the sequestration was finally lifted in 2001. Others have countered that Ashour has lost much of his popularity over the past four years, and has become too close to the government. Independent lawyer Fatma Rabie said Ashour's solid relationship with the government became clear when "MPs belonging to the ruling NDP organised several electoral rallies to express their support for Ashour." Responding to the charges, Ashour said the syndicate is not "an island isolated from the government. We are not an opposition party. It's totally normal to deal with the state for the betterment of lawyers." Attiya, meanwhile, has made moves to distance himself from his pro-government reputation, saying he was running as an independent. "The [ruling] NDP has nothing to do with my nomination," he told the Weekly, "I'm not the government candidate, or the Brotherhood candidate. I'm the candidate of all lawyers regardless of their political or religious affiliations." Attiya said he would be able to work smoothly with any council, meaning "the syndicate will witness, for the first time after four years of unrest, some sort of harmony between council members and the chairman." That did not mean, Attiya said, that he would be "an auxiliary to the Brotherhood. The will of the majority of council members must be respected. Neither the council nor the chairman should attempt to marginalise the other." Attiya said he would work to ensure that "the council's financial dealings take place in complete transparency." His first priority upon taking office would be upgrading the level of services offered to lawyers. According to the judicial committee charged with supervising professional syndicate elections, 166,000 lawyers -- all members of the association's general assembly -- have the right to vote. At least half must actually cast their votes for the elections to meet its legal quorum; if not, the votes are re-cast the following week, when only 30 per cent need take part. Although voting for council seats is on an individual, rather than list, basis, it has become common for different ideological groups to use lists, in an unofficial way, to identify and drum up support for their candidates. Voters do not have to choose all the names included in the list. While both Ashour and the Brotherhood released unofficial electoral lists, Attiya decided not to. The Brotherhood's list features 24 candidates, 11 of whom are members of the group. The rest come from different political trends including, for the first time, a woman -- Coptic lawyer Mona Gamil. In 2001, the group put eight of their own on the council and also secured seats for 10 supporters, four of whom later turned against the group and backed Ashour. This time, the Brotherhood was choosing supporters "who are trustworthy, whose principles are not for sale," said Gamal Tageddin. Ashour's 14-candidate electoral list included five Nasserist lawyers. "We want a strong council, combining different political trends, capable of supporting lawyers' interests, away from any political struggles," said Nasserist lawyer Sayed Abdel-Ghani. He said his group wanted a "council that is not subject to the domination of a single political current. Otherwise, it will lose its independence."
