Back to square one

By Mona El-Nahhas
In the four years since the government dismantled the Islamist-oriented council of the Bar Association, placing the syndicate under government control, large numbers of the syndicate's members came to view the holding of free and fair elections for a new council as nothing short of liberation.
After legal twists, government dallying and internal jitters, the long-awaited day came last month. Lawyers went to the polls on 17 February to vote for their chairman and council members. Ironically, the first round failed to meet the legal quorum, and the elections were rescheduled for Saturday, 24 February. The results, however, suggest more difficulties lie ahead.
Nasserist lawyer Sameh Ashour snagged the top post of syndicate chairman with 19,107 votes. The incoming council is resoundingly Islamist, recalling the dissolved council elected in 1992. The elections thus mark another key victory for the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, who made a strong showing in last year's parliamentary elections. Voting lists naming candidates backed by the Brotherhood were circulated ahead of the election. Out of the 24 seats available, only two were won by council members not named on the Brotherhood's list. Of those elected, 15 are members of the Muslim Brotherhood while the remaining seven, though ostensibly not affiliated with the Brotherhood, are known to be sympathetic to Islamist causes.
The ideological divide between the newly-elected chairman and the council majority has raised questions over how Ashour will be able to deal with the council. Immediately after the election results were announced, Ashour outlined the bare bones of his future leadership, saying that the election results were a declaration of independence from government rule. Directly addressing the issue of the Islamist majority, Ashour stated that he would steer the syndicate away from political disputes and claimed that he would not allow the syndicate to become a front for any political organisation.
Ashour said he was looking forward to working with the new council, noting that whatever its make-up, it is a reflection of the will of syndicate members. Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hassan El-Banna, who gathered the largest number of votes (24,258 votes), told Al-Ahram Weekly that political differences between the council and its chairman would not be allowed to hinder the syndicate's performance.
"Political affiliations should be kept aside," said El-Banna. "Priority will be given to interests of lawyers." Praising the role of the judiciary in supervising the elections, El-Banna said that the vote was conducted freely and without government interference.
But leftist lawyer Mohamed El-Damati couldn't disagree more. He says that Ashour is bound to come up against the Islamist-controlled council and will end up being marginalised in decision-making.
The Brotherhood's success came at the expense of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), which failed to win a single council seat, though an NDP candidate, Raga'i Atiya, did appear on the Brotherhood's voter list. The Brotherhood had given every indication that it would back Atiya, but at the decisive moment, voters didn't keep their word. In the end, it was a windfall for the Islamists.
Analysts say that the ruse was probably a revenge tactic -- a pay back for the government's crackdown on the Brotherhood ahead of parliamentary elections. Of the 20 leading Brotherhood figures convicted of joining an illegal organisation and "infiltrating" professional syndicates, only five were acquitted. The remaining 15 were given sentences ranging from three to five years.
Gamal Tageddin, a new Brotherhood council member, said he regretted Atiya's loss, but declined to comment on the issue. He attributed the success of the Brotherhood to the services, including increased pensions and better medical care, they had offered lawyers in the past. Yet there seems to be a consensus among lawyers themselves that the government is unlikely to allow the Brotherhood to take control of the syndicate's affairs.
Leftist lawyer Assem Abdin expressed his disappointment with the election results, having hoped for a council with a more diverse political profile. Abdin believes that the government will do all it can to oust the Islamist council, setting the stage for a replay of events in 1996, when the council was accused of financial irregularities. The syndicate was placed under judicial sequestration and it was not until last year that a court ruling ordered new elections to be held.
Anti-Islamist lawyer Ahmed Gom'a, reportedly backed by the government, took the first step towards the seemingly inevitable string of legal tangles when he filed a lawsuit before the Administrative Court contesting the legality of the elections. He told the Weekly he had prepared the appeal before the elections even took place, as he was expecting the Brotherhood comeback. He swore that he would never allow the illegal group to regain control of the Bar Association.
The lawsuit claims that some of the voting, which took place in courtrooms, violates a law stipulating the elections can only take place at the syndicate's headquarters and branches. It also alleges that elections took place without giving syndicate members a chance to revise the candidate list, even though the nominations were made ahead of the originally scheduled elections last July. Some lawyers have argued that since then, certain nominees were no longer eligible for the positions they contested. Gom'a claims the judicial committee supervising syndicate elections ignored this fact and stuck with the old nominations. A date for the hearing has not yet been set.
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