Makram Mohamed Ahmed has retained his post as chairman of the Press Syndicate in a run-off election after a fierce battle. Shaden Shehab assesses the result of a week of frantic campaigning The competition between sitting chairman Makram Mohamed Ahmed and deputy director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, Diaa Rashwan, to head the Press Syndicate has left neither candidate unscathed. Of 3,980 valid votes cast in the run-off poll Ahmed won 2,419 and Rashwan 1,561. The number of journalists eligible to vote is 5,532. Ahmed's supporters described the result as a landslide while Rashwan's supporters insisted that the poll had established that demands for change were now unstoppable. Ahmed, a former editor of the state-owned weekly Al-Mussawar who began his career as a military correspondent and is now a columnist with Al-Ahram, survived an assassination attempt in 1987 after penning a series of articles against terrorism in Egypt. Rashwan is an expert on Islamic movements and internal Egyptian politics at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. He writes columns for several newspapers. As the campaigns of both unfolded it became clear that smearing was to be the name of the game. Ahmed was accused of being a conduit for government interference in syndicate affairs, Rashwan of being the vehicle of a Nasserist- Muslim Brotherhood (MB) takeover of the syndicate. Although the MB announced its support to Rashwan, he denied having brokered a deal with the group. Ahmed, who clearly enjoyed government backing, denied being a government lackey. Until the results of Sunday's run-off no one would have hazarded a bet on the result. During the first vote on 6 December Ahmed won just 39 votes more than Rashwan. In the second poll he increased his lead 858 votes. While that might seem a convincing victory it reflects, says veteran journalist Salama Ahmed Salama, a "growing demand for change in the syndicate". And the pressure, says Salama, is largely coming from younger journalists. During the second round 932 more journalists voted than in the first. "They didn't turn up for the first poll because they assumed Ahmed would score an easy victory. They turned out for the run-off to make sure he would win," says veteran journalist Salah Eissa. Political analyst Amr Elshobaky believes that "Ahmed won not because he was the government's favourite but because he has never been a puppet in the government's hands and that "had the official candidate been other than Ahmed, Rashwan would have come out on top." Despite the final result, says Elshobaky, Rashwan has been "successful in sending a message to the government that the profession is in crisis and that many journalists on national papers voted for Rashwan in protest at their own editors-in-chief." Ahmed himself said that many journalists have voted for Rashwan because he "made the mistake of appearing with many chief editors of national papers at his side during the first elections". It was a mistake he did not repeat in the run-off. In the run-up to the second poll journalists were bombarded by text messages, the majority from Ahmed warning of the "dangerous" results of Rashwan's victory. The week also saw the resolution of several longstanding problems. The problem of journalists appointed to Al-Shaab newspaper, which was frozen nine years ago, was miraculously resolved. After almost a decade they received news that they were to be reallocated to state- owned publications. The journalists had staged a hunger strike at the Press Syndicate headquarters and their presence on the 6 December hardly served Ahmed's campaign. There were also announcements of pension and basic salary increases, as well as an additional 20 acres in the 6 October governorate allocated for journalists' housing. Rashwan's team was also busy texting, trying to capitalise on Ahmed's announcements by pointing out that they came in response to the tied first vote and that, in opting for Rashwan, journalists could expect to secure even more gains. "Relieve your conscience," ran one text: "Our goal is not only to change faces but to change the status of journalists to the better", read another. Rashwan accused the editors-in-chief of some state-owned newspapers of pressuring journalists working in their organisations to vote for Ahmed and objected to the editorials and columns supporting Ahmed in national papers as biased. Ahmed accused the MB-Nasserist coalition of adopting a smear campaign and spreading lies on the Ikhwanonline website. After claims that he had accepted a donation of 700 laptops from the Israeli ambassador Ahmed filed a lawsuit against the website. Rashwan has demanded an in-house syndicate investigation into "irregularities" during the campaign. The bitterness of the campaign was made clear as soon as the results were announced. Rashwan left soon after, and Ahmed appeared loath to partake in the usual photo-op handshake with his rival.
