No one predicted a second ballot in the Press Syndicate elections. And now, writes Shaden Shehab, only the foolhardy would attempt to second guess the results It seemed as if the elections for the post of chairman of the Press Syndicate would be much of a muchness with earlier polls. No one was predicting anything out of the ordinary. Then the results of the ballot were announced and the syndicate was thrown into one of the fiercest competitions for decades. Although there are seven candidates, the battle is between the current chairman, Makram Mohamed Ahmed, 74, and deputy director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, Diaa Rashwan, 50. Out of the 3,048 votes cast on Sunday Ahmed won 1497 and Rashwan 1458. Under the Press Syndicate law the successful candidate must secure 50 per cent of the total vote plus one. The remaining 103 votes were either for the other five nominees or null. The number of journalists eligible to vote is 5,532. A second ballot has now been scheduled for next Sunday. The final results remain anyone's guess. When it was announced that a run-off would be necessary Rashwan was hoisted onto the shoulders of his supporters from which position he shouted "Change will come". Clearly disappointed, Ahmed left almost immediately without issuing a statement. The result came as a surprise to a great many pundits who believed, like Ahmed, that he would romp home. So are there any clues in the first vote as to who will eventually emerge victorious? "Not really," says prominent journalist Salah Eissa. "Remember, 2,484 journalists did not cast a vote and these missing voters might swing either way." Ahmed's supporters argue that the journalists who did not turn up to vote on Sunday were absent because they assumed Ahmed would score an easy victory. Rashwan's camp argues the opposite. They stayed away because they thought their votes would make no difference. Now they realise that they can vote for change they will turn up in their hordes. "What is clear is that a large number of journalists want a new generation to turn the wheel, including the growing number of young journalists in the relatively recent independent press," says leading columnist Salama Ahmed Salama. "Journalists are fed up with the old faces and [Ahmed] represents a form of inheritance which is not accepted by the young." Hamdeen Sabahi, editor-in-chief of Al-Karama newspaper, mouthpiece of the as yet unlicensed Karama party, points out that should Ahmed lose it will be the first time that a sitting candidate has failed in his bid for a second term. Eissa, while insisting that he believes change can be a positive thing, has reservations about people seeking change for its own sake. "We should seek faces with a new vision rather than just a younger face," he says. For the past two decades, with the exception of Galal Aref (2003-2007), an Akhbar Al-Yom writer with Nasserist affiliations who beat Al-Ahram columnist and government candidate Salah Montasser, it is the officially sanctioned government candidate who has always won the day. Some editors-in-chief of state-owned newspapers were present, and a number of them stood beside Ahmed on polling day in a public display of support. The heads of the opposition and independent newspapers were clearly supporting Rashwan. What seems to have swung the vote, though, is that, as Salama points out, journalists at state-owned newspapers are no longer easily swayed by their chief editors. Journalists at state-owned papers constitute a majority within the syndicate, yet they clearly voted at odds with their bosses. Although Ahmed is widely seen as a respectable journalist with a long history of professional achievements he has failed to escape being labelled as the government's candidate. Certainly he managed to secure the kind of official commitments -- an increase in basic pay for journalists -- that have always accompanied the regime's favourite for the post. Ahmed vehemently denies the label, insisting that he represents all political affiliations within the syndicate. This did not prevent him, however, from announcing that his relations with the government will enable him to finish the construction of journalists' compounds in 6 October governorate. Rashwan is widely viewed as the independent candidate, though he has never denied his Nasserist links. "My political affiliation will not influence my decisions if I am elected chairman," he says. He much prefers to be tagged as a representative of the younger generation, announcing repeatedly during his campaign that the time for change has come. But just as Ahmed is accused of being a conduit for government interference in syndicate affairs, so Rashwan is accused of being the vehicle of a Nasserist-Muslim Brotherhood (MB) coalition. Rashwan denies having entered into any deal with the MB, insisting it has always been the government candidate who struck such bargains in the past and adding "such lies are being circulated to frighten people off voting for me." The Press Syndicate is alone among professional unions in having avoided the divisions between Islamists and secularists that have seen other syndicate's sequestrated. "I will not allow that the syndicate be manipulated by any political trend, be it the government, liberals, the Muslim Brotherhood, leftists or the Nasserists," promises Ahmed. The agendas of both candidates broadly overlap. They have both vowed to press for the scrapping of custodial sentences for publishing offences and to support new freedom of information legislation. Both promise to work towards improving salaries, pensions and health insurance. Both want to see training programmes put in place. The difference is that Ahmed intends to pursue his goals through negotiations, while Rashwan promises a more confrontational approach. The first thing he will do if elected chairman, he says, is to call an extraordinary general assembly to discuss ways of increasing salaries, strikes included. Rashwan says he is looking forward to election day. Ahmed seems less enthusiastic. "I still have to think about my options," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. "I haven't taken any decision yet but I will not throw away my good reputation for the sake of the post. I might surprise everybody."
