Early results of Sunday's parliamentary election show the NDP heading towards a landslide, reports Gamal Essam El-Din As expected, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) swept the first round of the 28 November People's Assembly elections. The results showed septuagenarian old guard officials and business tycoons, both doing well. Among the old guard victors were Fathi Sorour, the long-serving speaker of the People's Assembly; Zakaria Azmi, NDP assistant secretary-general and chief of President Hosni Mubarak's staff; Abdel-Ahad Gamaleddin, the NDP's parliamentary spokesman; Amal Othman, a former minister and the chair of parliament's Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee and Hussein Megawer, chairman of the General Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions (GEFTU). Nine cabinet ministers also won seats. They include Minister of Local Development Abdel-Salam El-Mahgoub, who fought a hard battle against Brotherhood candidate Sobhi Saleh in Al-Raml district in Alexandria; Minister of Military Production Sayed Meshaal who faced a ferocious campaign from journalist Mustafa Bakri in Helwan and Ali Meselhi, minister of social solidarity, who was opposed by the Brotherhood's El-Simari Mansour in the Sharqiya governorate district of Abu Kibier. Other cabinet ministers -- Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Moufid Shehab, Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza and Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros Ghali -- swept to easy victories. It was no surprise that business tycoons who donated millions of pounds to the NDP during the two- week election campaign secured their seats in parliament. The list includes Ahmed Ezz, NDP secretary for organisational affairs; Mohamed Abul-Enein, chairman of Cleopatra Group and of parliament's Industry Committee; Tarek Talaat Mustafa, the brother of construction magnate Hisham Talaat Mustafa who is currently facing trial on murder charges and Khaled Khairi, a major player in the tourist industry. Other prominent businessmen MPs include construction magnate Mohamed El-Morshidi, tourism's Mansour Amer; import and export tycoon Ahmed Shiha; industrialist Talaat El-Swidi; oil investor Akmal Qortam; construction magnate Mahmoud Othman and textile and garment manufacturer Talaat El-Qawwas. Three of the NDP's 10 Coptic candidates secured first round victories: Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros Ghali; Souad Israel, the party's candidate for Luxor's woman only seat and businessman Khaled Al-Assiuti in Cairo's commercial district of Azbakiya. According to Ezz, who took charge of planning the NDP's election campaign and selecting its candidates, "the party's strategy, based on fielding double candidates for the same seat and mobilising its voting bloc, was successful in disrupting the tactics of rival candidates, especially those belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood". Ezz further argued that, "the party's careful selection of its candidates was a factor in defeating big opposition names such as Hamdeen Sabahi". Alieddin Hilal, NDP secretary for media affairs, told the party's website ( ndp.org.eg ) that the party will replicate Sunday's successes in the run-off round scheduled for 5 December. "The party's Media Committee played a great role in providing media reporters with information and managed to explain many of the events which took place on election day," he said. "In addition to the fact that its main symbols, including old guard politicians and high-profile businessmen, won seats in the first round, the defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood is seen as the biggest achievement of the party's heavyweight leaders," says political analyst Ammar Ali Hassan. "The NDP saw the election as an opportunity to redeem its poor performance in the 2005 election," says Hassan, who argues that the lack of judicial supervision helped the party secure its first round successes. Gamal Abdel-Gawwad, director of Al-Ahram's Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS) and a member of NDP's Policies Committee, argues that "the performance of the NDP in the first round was far better than in 2005 because the party ran a well-planned political, legal and media campaign." "The party's strategy of fielding more than one candidate for the same seat and its aggressive media campaign against its arch rival the Muslim Brotherhood helped prevent Brotherhood candidates from winning a single seat in the first round." The NDP responded to Brotherhood media attacks, strongly denying that the vote was marred by widespread violence and acts of thuggery. "I asked NDP candidates and supporters not to be provoked by the malicious attempts of this outlawed group," said NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-El-Sherif. "The NDP did its best to ensure that the voting was free from any irregularities." El-Sherif denies that NDP candidates or their supporters were involved in any violent acts and was scathing about foreign media coverage of the election. "Most foreign TV channels were interested only in manipulating facts and covering one-side of what happened," said El-Sherif. "These channels are generally biased. They select interviewees in order to convey a misleading view of the voting process." All local and foreign media correspondents were allowed free access to the NDP's headquarters, he added. The NDP's website has accused the BBC's Arabic television channel of disseminating "false information about the vote", claiming the BBC's Arabic coverage "was biased and refrained from reporting real facts about the voting process". Alieddin Hilal, NDP's secretary for media affairs, stressed that "the information which the NDP's central operation room in Cairo received from across Egypt suggested that violent acts were isolated incidents". "We received just one or two reports of clashes in the Delta governorates, but the overall picture was one of the election running smoothly and citizens freely exercising their right to vote."
