Zamalek club will have an elected board of directors to run the club for the next four years when elections take place Friday, reports Inas Mazhar The elections were originally scheduled for July last year but two days before the poll they were cancelled and a new board was appointed. So far, so good. Candidates are running their campaigns everywhere -- in the club, on the streets, on radio and TV and the newspapers. The elections have been making daily headlines for the past month. It has been a tough slog for the candidates, a tug of war. Candidates are hurling accusations at each other in order to tarnish the image of their opponents. Former club president Mortada Mansour won his court case and is back in the fray. Mansour promises to save the club from whom he claims wrecked it and pledges to make it up to them . Another member, Lo'aei Debes, has won another lawsuit, and is running for one of the six board members seats. Debes was previously excluded because he hadn't fulfilled his military service. But the courts gave him the green light to run. There is a rumour that Debes will file another lawsuit requesting another delay to give himself more time to continue his promotional campaign. Mamdouh Abbas, another former club president, mainly depends on players he has brought for the club. The multi- millionaire says his money served the club well in the years he was in charge. If Abbas wins he says he promises to include Raouf Gasser, Ahmed Galal Ibrahim, Sabri Serag, Hani El-Attal and former Zamalek superstar Hazem Emam for appointments to posts in the club. A third ex-president, Kamal Darwish, will enlist the assistance of Ismail Selim, El-Mandouh El-Hosini, Azmi Megahed, Ahmed Mustafa, Khaled Gabr and Ibrahim Abdullah. George Saad, Diaa Abdel-Hadi, Khaled Latif and Ahmed Mortada Mansour will be on Mansour's list. Ahmed is Mansour's son. Ibrahim Youssef, Sabri Hassan and Mustafa Abdel-Khalek are running together as members in a separate list which they call "the white list" but they are not joining any presidential candidate. Five people are running for president as independents: Abdel-Tawab Khalf, Khaled El-Korashi, Mahmoud Khaled, Mohamed Bahgat and Nasser Metwalli. Other members are also running as independent board members. They do not belong to any list: Faten Omar, Ahmed Abdel-Ghani, Ossama Abdel-Bari, Mohamed Sadek, Ahmed Youssef Koteb, Gamal Shaalan and Sabet Ahmed Sabet. The club will be a busy beehive of activity in the morning of Friday with players from all sports teams helping garner votes for their favourite candidate.
