Preliminary lists of NDP parliamentary candidates have now been drawn up, writes Gamal Essam El-Din, and there are few surprises Members of the ruling National Democratic Party's (NDP) six-member steering office met yesterday to review the names of hopeful candidates in November's parliamentary elections. The meeting, said NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif, was a precursor to the announcement by party provincial secretaries of the names of the candidates who will go forward to face the party's three part selection process. Moufid Shehab, minister of state for legal and parliamentary affairs and NDP assistant secretary- general, told Al-Ahram Weekly that since "hundreds had registered in the hope of standing they will have to be filtered before the final list of 508 is announced". The first stage of the process, said Shehab, will involve the party's electoral colleges which are due to meet on 29 September. "Until now and 29 September candidates will be seeking to win the support of members of the electoral colleges in their districts." Between 2 and 17 October, candidates will vie for the support of all NDP members in their districts in internal elections. Finally, says Shehab, they will face the court of wider public opinion via opinion polls. The list of the party's possible candidates, Shehab revealed, contains the names of eight cabinet ministers. "The fact that most cabinet ministers who have registered are standing unopposed does not guarantee that they will become official candidates in the upcoming polls," Shehab said. "They will not enjoy any privileges. Most of them will be required to face the three-stage selection process." Mahmoud Mohieldin, Minister of Investment, who had registered to be the NDP's candidate in Kafr Shukr, is no longer standing. Mohieldin, who has accepted an appointment as director of the World Bank, will be leaving his office as minister of investment on 4 October in order to take up the post. Mohieldin's resignation gave room for his cousin, former Major-General El-Sayed El-Badawi, to register as the party's candidate in Kafr Shukr. Another surprise came when Mohamed Abdel-Salam Mahgoub, minister of local development, registered as a possible candidate in the Alexandria district of Al-Raml. Sources say El-Mahgoub, who was a popular governor of Alexandria between 1995 and 2006, had been pressed by NDP leaders to stand in order to head off a possibly strong challenge in the constituency from the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2005 they won eight out of Alexandria's 20 seats. The third surprise was the failure of Ahmed Zaki Badr, Minister of Education, to register. Instead, Badr's brother Ahmed, a lawyer, is competing against Amin Mubarak, a cousin of President Hosni Mubarak and the former chairman of parliament's Industry and Energy Committee, for the party's nomination in Shebin Al-Kom, the capital of the Nile-Delta governorate of Menoufiya. The list of cabinet ministers who have registered includes existing MPs Youssef Boutros Ghali, in the Cairo North district of Shubra; Minister of Social Solidarity Ali Meselhi in the Sharqiya governorate district of Abu Kebeir; Minister of Military Production Sayed Meshaal in Helwan, and five new faces to parliament, Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Moufid Shehab in Alexandria's Moharram Bey district; Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Mohamed Nasreddin Allam in Sohag governorate's Juhayna district; Minister of Local Development Mohamed Abdel-Salam El-Mahgoub in Alexandria's Al-Raml district, Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza in Sharqiya governorate's district of Al-Tilien, and Minister of State for International Cooperation Fayza Abul-Naga in Port Said. They are supplemented by five former cabinet ministers, the Speaker of the People's Assembly Fathi Sorour, and Chief of Presidential Staff Zakaria Azmi. Twenty high-profile business tycoons also figure prominently on the NDP's list of possible candidates, including steel magnate Ahmed Ezz, chairman of parliament's Budget Committee and NDP Secretary for Organisational Affairs; industrialist Mohamed Abul-Enein, chairman of parliament's Industry Committee, and construction magnate Tarek Talaat Mustafa, chairman of parliament's Housing Committee and the brother of Hisham Talaat Mustafa, the former Shura Council member who is facing trial on murder charges. The list also includes most of the heads of parliamentary committees, including Amal Othman, chair of the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, and Mustafa El-Said, a former economy minister and chair of the Economic Affairs Committee. El-Sherif stressed that four names of NDP MPs involved in the ongoing scandal concerning the misdirection of funds intended for free medical treatment of poor constituents, will not be appearing. Shamseddin Anwar, El-Dami Abdel-Aziz, Ibrahim Abu Shadi and El-Sayed Azab are currently being investigated by the prosecution authorities. Following yesterday's six-member steering office meeting a statement was issued in response to demands by the Coalition of Egyptian Opposition Parties (CEOP) -- which includes the Wafd, Tagammu, Nasserists, and the Democratic Front -- for greater guarantees for a free and fair election. The CEOP had called on President Mubarak to amend the 1956 law on the exercise of political rights in order to place parliamentary elections under the full supervision of judges from the Court of Cassation -- the highest judicial authority in Egypt -- and for the individual candidacy system to be replaced by party lists. Shehab told Al-Ahram Weekly that, "the NDP is keen that election guarantees outlined in the political rights law be implemented strictly to ensure integrity and transparency". "We will give as much freedom as possible to local monitors, including representatives from party-based and independent candidates, human rights and civil society organisations, and media people, to observe the poll," said Shehab. "NDP legal experts, though, are agreed that the opposition's demands for restructuring the Higher Election Commission (HEC) and instigating a party list system require the approval of both houses of parliament."
