Will upcoming elections be the decisive moment in the ongoing Islamist-Nasserist Bar Association feud, asks Mona El-Nahhas Next month's elections for the Bar Association chairman's post, as well as 24-council seats, are already looking hot. There are seven competitors for the chairman's post and 300 for the council seats. As expected, the 12 March ballot looks to be a continuation of the fierce battle between current syndicate chairman, Nasserist lawyer Sameh Ashour, and the syndicate's council, which is dominated by members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group. Ever since the last elections, in 2001, the two camps have been attempting to marginalise each other. The net result has been a decline in the council's performance as a whole. Credited with raising pensions and upgrading the level of some of the syndicate's member services, Ashour is still criticised for not doing enough to extract the syndicate from its ideological woes. As the electioneering heats up, Ashour has been urging syndicate members to prevent the Brotherhood from dominating the council again. His argument is that an Islamist- dominated council could result in the syndicate being placed under judicial sequestration, just as 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. The Brotherhood group, in an attempt to get rid of Ashour, has decided to back pro-government candidate Raga'i Atteya in his bid to unseat Ashour as syndicate chairman. Atteya lost in the previous elections, partly because of a lack of support from the Brotherhood. Ashour and Atteya are the contest's front- runners; the other five lawyers running for the post are nowhere near as popular. The vote for council seats, meanwhile, has become a scramble on all sides, as alliances with Ashour and Atteya are crystallised. The 300 nominees have concentrated much of their efforts on joining one of the candidate's "lists". Although voting for council seats is on an individual rather than list basis, in many syndicates different ideological blocs use these unofficial lists to identify and drum up support for their candidates. The syndicate's Brotherhood- Nasserist contest was reflected in the mad dash of lawyers who recently turned against Ashour appearing on the Brotherhood list, while former supporters of the Brotherhood were lining up with Ashour. Ashour's list, while diverse, is also overwhelmingly Nasserist, with at least five Nasserist lawyers on it. Nasserist lawyer Sayed Abdel-Ghani insisted, however, that his group wanted a "council that was not subject to the domination of a single political current. Otherwise, it will lose its independence. We want a strong council, combining different political trends, and capable of achieving lawyers' interests, away from any political struggles." The Brotherhood list, thus far, was also an attempt to diversify, including 10 members of the group, as well as 5 lawyers with different political affiliations. The NDP's Abdel-Salam Kheshk and Wafdist Mahmoud El-Saqqa appeared in the new Brotherhood list, and leftist lawyer Mohamed Fazza' and Nasserist Sayed Abdel-Qader are said to be in the wings. Questions were being asked, meanwhile, about why the Brotherhood list did not include three of its current council members -- Ahmed El- Hamrawi, Bahaa Abdel-Rahman and Ali Zein El- Abedin. Council deputy chairman Mohamed Toson brushed off suggestions of an internal conflict. Montasser El-Zayyat's sudden appearance on the Brotherhood list also raised eyebrows. Islamist lawyer El-Zayyat -- a former spokesman for Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya -- was not on the brotherhood list in 2001. While the press has been speculating about the possibility of a Gamaa-Brotherhood coalition, Toson said El- Zayyat's appearance this time was "normal", so that the list would have a diverse spectrum of "lawyers from different political trends". In this, the Brotherhood seemed to be taking a cue from Ashour, who also included an Islamist lawyer -- Mohamed Hashem -- on his list. The Brotherhood's list, meanwhile, looks like it will also feature a Coptic lawyer. Both camps are looking to woo the syndicate's large Coptic bloc of around 20,000 lawyers, 10,000 of whom have the right to vote. One notable omission was women, who constitute nearly 30 per cent of lawyers, but were not included in any of the lists -- even though three women are running for council seats. The 166,000 lawyers who have the right to vote will cast their ballots on 12 March. A judicial committee is in charge of supervising the entire electoral process, which will involve voters divided into 350 electoral committees covering the different governorates.
