Amid political turmoil, one syndicate held elections and another is about to stage a poll of its own, Mona El-Nahhas reports Despite the current tense political climate, lawyers managed to hold their elections on Sunday, with Nasserist lawyer Sameh Ashour capturing the chair for the third time after receiving 37,597 votes. Wafdist lawyer Mohamed Kamel, Ashour's nearest rival, and who was said to be backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, got 19,817 votes. Results were announced on Monday by the judicial committee that supervised the electoral process. As was expected the Brotherhood took the majority of the 44 council seats, after it was announced that its candidates won 29 seats. The remaining seats went to leftist and independent candidates. The newly-elected council is now expected to call for holding elections at Bar Association branches across Egypt. Twenty-six candidates were vying for the chair seat and 399 for the council. The current council, dominated by MBs and headed by Ashour, is reminiscent of the councils of 2001 and 2005, which saw endless disputes between the two sides. However, following the announcement of the results, Ashour stated that he had no problem in dealing with any political trend, referring to the MB. As to his priority in the current stage, Ashour said the council would immediately start the drafting of a new law for lawyers that would regulate their profession. "We will not allow anyone to deprive lawyers of their rights and what they have gained," said Ashour who recently led lawyers' protests against the new draft law of the judiciary, which lawyers viewed as humiliating their profession. Election results were hailed by lawyers as being free and transparent. In fact, the electoral process, as lawyers described it, was well organised. No complaints either from candidates or voters were reported on the day of the poll. Out of 269,000 lawyers who are members of the syndicate's general assembly, 90,000 cast their votes in 425 electoral committees located in the headquarters of the general syndicate and Egypt's courts. Glass ballot boxes were used in the voting, which lasted until 5pm. Meantime, at the Engineers Syndicate, thousands of engineers will head to ballot boxes tomorrow (Friday) to elect a new syndicate chairman and 63 council members. Tomorrow's poll is the first to be held since 1995, the year when the Engineers Syndicate was placed under judicial sequestration. The rivalry between candidates belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and those representing the independent current is expected to be keen. The MB is seeking the majority of council seats while the group is said to back Mohamed Kholosi,for chairman. Challenging Osman is Tareq El-Nabarawi who represents the independents. El-Nabarawi insists that the syndicate chairman should be independent from any political group in order to maintain his neutrality while running the syndicate. The electoral programme of independent nominees stresses that the Engineers Syndicate should not be controlled by any political group, referring to the MB. "No control. No exclusion" is their electoral slogan. The general assembly, as is stated in the programme, should be the sole body which has the right to make policies, assess the performance of the syndicate council and question the syndicate chairman. The independents have prepared an electoral list of candidates which includes names of prominent engineering figures, members of leftist and liberal political parties and Coptic engineers. Omar Abdella from the MB criticised representatives of the independents for what he said were their non-stop attacks on the MB. "They have no future vision for the syndicate. The only thing they do is attack us," Abdella said, adding that the MB has prepared an electoral list of candidates, including names of prominent engineers who have different political affiliations. "Excluding certain categories from participation is against our principles," Abdella said, expressing his reservation over the electoral slogan of the independence group.
