NDP sweeps in pallid Shura polls

The ruling National Democratic Party won a landslide victory in the initial lacklustre round of a three-stage mid-term elections of the Shura Council. Gamal Essam El-Din reports
In a low-key event, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) won an easy victory in this week's first stage mid-term elections of the Shura Council. In the absence of the majority of opposition parties, the elections witnessed official NDP candidates primarily pitting against NDP members running independently after the ruling party declined to nominate them.
Early expectations that full judicial supervision would revitalise the 21-year-old pallid elections to the Shura Council, traditionally lacking warmth, have proved to be highly exaggerated. Interior Ministry officials announced that voter turnout was very low, ranging on average from two to seven per cent. They added that 232 candidates, including just nine from the opposition, contested the elections in 21 constituencies to fill 30 seats. The NDP fielded 33 candidates, while NDP members who ran as independents -- generally known as NDP independents -- numbered almost 180.
In Tuesday's run-off round of the first stage of the Shura polls, 40 candidates, representing 13 constituencies in six governorates, competed. The governorates included Giza, Beheira, Qalioubiya, Fayoum, Beni Suef and Qena. Nineteen seats were up for grabs in that round. Competition included 20 NDP official candidates and 20 NDP independents.
In the first round of the first stage of elections, which was held in eight governorates on 16 May, the NDP won 13 seats, two of them uncontested. The NDP won all seven seats of the two governorates of Menoufiya and North Sinai. The elections were contested by nine opposition hopefuls and one candidate for the Muslim Brotherhood, but all of them failed. Not a single seat was won by any of the five women candidates who ran.
The landslide victory achieved by the NDP in this round drew a mixed response. NDP officials, desperate for victory after two staggering defeats in less than seven months, were quick to announce that the elections were "a hard test for the party and it passed it very successfully". NDP Secretary-general Youssef Wali said that the new system introduced this year for the selection of NDP candidates accounted for this victory.
This week's NDP sweep victory was attributed by independent political observers to two main factors. The first, and more important, was that some opposition candidates, especially those belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, were subjected to police harassment. Since campaigning for Shura elections began in April, nearly 33 Brotherhood members have been arrested. The other reason was that the majority of the opposition parties boycotted the ballot, arguing that campaigning for seats on a council that had no legislative powers was not worth either the effort or the money. Leading officials of some opposition parties, such as the liberal Wafd and the leftist Tagammu, told members that they were free to contest the Shura elections but stipulated that they would be on their own. These two factors opened the door wide for the NDP to win most of the seats, as its members form the vast majority of nominees.
This scenario is very likely to repeat itself next Sunday, when the first round of the second stage of the Shura polls is due to be held. Competing in this second stage of balloting are 242 candidates in eight more governorates: Gharbiya, Sharqiya, Daqahliyya, Damietta, Ismailia, Suez, South Sinai and the Red Sea. Run-off elections will be held on 2 June. Up for grabs in this stage are 25 seats representing 21 constituencies.
While the number of opposition party hopefuls reached nine in the first stage, it will scale down to a mere two in next Sunday's second stage. The two are in the Sharqiya governorate: one running for the Nasserist Party and the other for the Umma Party. The Muslim Brotherhood nominated three candidates: Hamdi Aql, a primary school teacher, Mohamed Abdel-Moneim, a merchant, and Hussein Saba'a, chairman of a Muslim charity fund in Daqahliyya governorate. On Sunday, El-Mansoura's Administrative Court ordered that the three Brotherhood candidates not be prevented from running. But the government filed an appeal which, in effect, suspended the ruling and prevented them from running.
The second stage of the Shura mid-term elections will be contested by 13 women candidates, compared to five in the first stage. All running as independents, the nine include two in Gharbiya, five in Ismailia, three in Sharqiya, and one each in the governorates of Damietta, South Sinai and Daqahliyya. Two Copts -- Samir Agaibi in the Red Sea and Yacoub Ghobrial in Ismailia -- will run as independents.
Most of the remaining candidates, about 230, are NDP independents. Of this number, 15 are members of the outgoing People's Assembly. Two other former MPs are running as official NDP candidates.
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