Lawyers are due to elect a new council and chair of the Bar Association. Mona El-Nahhas reviews the campaign Two days ahead of Bar Association polls and the contest is heating up with candidates making new promises by the hour. Twenty two candidates are running for the post of syndicate chairman and 217 for places on the 41-seat council. Former syndicate chairman Sameh Ashour, who is hoping to regain office, is expected to win. He is rumoured to have the backing of the National Democratic Party (NDP) though, according to NDP lawyer Said El-Far, the NDP has not yet named its preferred candidate. Despite Nasserist leanings Ashour was the government candidate in the 2005 elections. His hostility to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is no secret and seems to have recommended him to the regime. Ashour denies that he enjoys government support and insists he is not in need of any official backing. His denials, though, are not widely accepted by lawyers, and certainly not by his rival Ragaai Atteya. Although Atteya is a member of the NDP, alliances with the MB in 2001 and 2005 syndicate elections are said to have cost him government support. Atteya is keen to stress that he is an independent candidate. "I am the candidate of all lawyers, regardless of their political affiliation. I'll be grateful to whoever gives me their vote. It does not matter to which party they belong," he said. Atteya has pledged to improve conditions at the syndicate and accuses former chairman Ashour of wasting public money. They are charges that have also been levelled by Rifaat El-Sayed, head of the Judicial Committee which has been running the syndicate since the council was dissolved in 2008. Ashour in his turn accuses El-Sayed of attempting to smear his image in order to promote Atteya's candidacy. It remains unclear which candidate the MB will support. The group usually reveals the name of its favoured nominee just hours before the vote. It is widely rumoured they will back Ashour, though the MB itself says any such talk is nonsense since it would never join hands with a candidate whose only target is to turn the Bar Association into a government-controlled body. The only certain thing about the MB's position is that it is targeting council seats. In its electoral list the group has named 15 members alongside supporters with different political affiliations. Independent lawyer Hamdi Khalifa, former chairman of the syndicate's Giza branch, is another possible contender. Khalifa has a record of improving services offered to Giza members and is regarded by many lawyers as capable of steering reform. Islamist lawyer Mokhtar Nouh also intends to run for the chairmanship following a recent court ruling that he was entitled to keep his membership of the syndicate. Last month Farouk Sultan, responsible for supervising elections at professional syndicates, stripped Nouh of his membership on the grounds that he had served a three-year prison sentence after being convicted by a military court in 1999. Nouh contested Sultan's decision, which he said was aimed to support the government's preferred candidate, and says the court proceeding has eaten into his campaign time. Liberal-oriented lawyer Talaat El-Sadat is also running, although many lawyers fear his penchant for confrontation with the regime may harm their interests. Elections at the Bar Association have been halted twice by court rulings, in October 2008 and in January 2009. In its first ruling, the Administrative Court said Law 100/1993 regulating polls at professional syndicates had been misapplied. It cited irregularities in voters' lists as the reason for the second delay. Polls could have been stopped for a third time after dozens of lawyers appealed to the courts. The Administrative Court, however, this time quashed the appeals and decided elections should go ahead.
