NDP 'independents' animate Shura poll

In less than seven months, the NDP has been dealt two humiliating blows, first in the People's Assembly, and then in the Bar Association, elections. Will the ruling party take another beating in the Shura ballot? asks Gamal Essam El-Din
Since they were first organised in 1980, elections for the Shura Council have been an easy win for the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). This was partly a result of repeated boycotts by opposition parties, partly because of the nature of the Shura Council itself. The 264-member Council is an upper consultative house with no legislative powers. It was established by the late President Anwar El-Sadat, largely to replace the defunct Arab Socialist Union as the nominal owner of the national press organisations.
However, in the first stage of mid-term Shura elections, which began yesterday, the easy wins of former years might not be repeated. The battle is no longer confined to NDP candidates, many of whom are running unopposed, but it has been expanded to include a significant number of opposition and independent contenders. This was the result of last year's ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court that the balloting be placed under full judicial supervision.
Yesterday's balloting marked the first of three stages of mid-term elections and took place in eight governorates: Giza, Qaliubiya, Menoufiya, Beheira, Fayoum, Beni-Suef, Qena and Northern Sinai. Run-off elections will be held on 22 May. Up for grabs in this stage are 30 seats representing 21 constituencies.
Competing in the first stage were some 232 candidates of a total of 851. They included 33 for the NDP, nine for six opposition parties and one for the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. The remaining 189 candidates include some 180 NDP members who decided to run independently after the party declined to nominate them. The hopefuls include five women -- two of them with the Wafd and Takaful (Social Solidarity) parties and one Christian -- Sami Morris, an independent, who is running in Fayoum city.
Voters were choosing from official NDP candidates, so-called NDP independents, who are running against the official party ticket, and the very modest number of opposition hopefuls. Early predictions show that 'NDP independents' are expected to win a significant number of seats.
As for the opposition, the Wafd party fielded three candidates in yesterday's first stage. They were Nadia Abd-Rabbou (Qaliubiya), Ahmed Youssef (Beni-Suef) and Mohamed Kamel (Menoufiya). The latter was expected to face a fierce battle. Kamel, a multi-millionaire businessman, is the foe of Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Kamal El-Shazli who, although he is an MP and not running for election, is said to be acting to bloc Kamel's success.
The two rivals belong to one district, Menoufiya's El-Bagour. Until the early 1990s, Kamel was a member of the NDP and the Shura Council but he was later dismissed from the party's ranks, allegedly because of his refusal to make financial donations to the party. It was afterwards rumoured that El-Shazli had sworn that no member of the Kamel family would be allowed to take a seat in parliament or the Shura Council.
Kamel claimed last week that his supporters were subjected to violence.
The El-Khanka district in Qaliubiya was witnessing a different kind of competition. NDP candidate Saleh El-Shimi, a professor at Ain Shams University's Faculty of Medicine, was running against Mohsen Hashem, the sole candidate of the frozen Islamist-oriented Labour party, and Maher Abu-Zeid, a candidate of the leftist Tagammu party. Hashem is known as a vocal opponent of Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali's policy of normalising agricultural relations with Israel. Both Hashem and Abu-Zeid are agronomists.
In the city of Beni-Suef in central Egypt, Hamdi Zahran, a Muslim Brotherhood candidate, was able to escape reported police harassment, and was running. In addition to Zahran, only one other Brotherhood member, Mohamed Amer, a doctor, managed to register his name as a candidate. He did so in Baltim, in the northern governorate of Kafr El-Sheikh. Zahran, a professor of botany and deputy chairman of the board of the local Islamic Propagation Society, was running against NDP candidate Ahmed Muwafi, a financial manager with the Arab Contractors Company, the Wafd party's Ahmed Youssef and Raga'i Abdel-Fattah, an NDP independent.
The battle in the Imbaba district of the Giza governorate was expected to be fierce. NDP candidate Hosni Badawi, an engineer, was running against the candidate of the Nasserist party Salah El-Meligi, a factory worker, and Youssef El-Mandouh, an NDP independent and an NDP deputy in the outgoing People's Assembly.
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