Amid mixed reaction at home and abroad, the ruling National Democratic Party boasted winning more than 97 per cent of contested seats in municipal elections, Gamal Essam El-Din reports A week after the 8 April municipal elections, members of the newly elected local councils held their first meeting on Wednesday to elect council chairmen and deputies. The meeting took place amid varying reactions at both local and international levels. In local terms, officials of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) said they were proud that at least 80 per cent of the party's candidates won the elections unopposed. The NDP's Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif said the elections were marked by transparency, integrity and impartiality. Added El-Sherif, "the NDP's victory is resounding and honourable." He argued that the NDP's sweeping majority in local councils will help it implement a reform programme aimed at decentralising local administration and improving public services for all Egyptians. Although no official figures were announced by Local Development Ministry officials, independent monitors and party-based candidates agreed that the NDP had won between 97.5 and 99.5 per cent of the seats. According to a report prepared by the Maat Centre for Human Rights and Constitutional Studies under the title How Elections Should Not Be: An Absence of Voters and Control by Security, the NDP fielded 53,000 official candidates, one for each seat. Out of this total and before election day, the Maat report said the NDP had won 90 per cent -- or around 44,000 seats -- of the total unopposed. As a result, Maat said the number of contested seats left up for grabs on election day had dropped to as low as 9,000. On 8 April, the report explained, competition became confined to 13,000 candidates vying for 9,000 seats, with 1,700 of them belonging to 22 opposition parties and the remaining either NDP official candidates or NDP members who decided to run independently. Other civil society organisations, including the Observatory of Democracy Status (ODS), said the NDP had won 88 per cent of seats before the election. On election day, ODS said the number of seats left up for grabs was as low as 7,000. Maat said on election day that the NDP had won an additional 9.5 per cent while between 700 and 800 seats -- or less than 0.5 per cent -- were clinched by 22 opposition parties. All in all, Maat and ODS agreed that this translates into a 99.5 per cent victory for the NDP. The performance of opposition parties in local council elections came under heavy fire. The Maat report said the three major opposition parties -- Wafd, Tagammu and Nasserists -- were originally able to field just 2,870 candidates, or a mere five per cent of the NDP's total number of candidates. "These three parties are old and should have a bigger number of candidates capable of competing in all kinds of elections," the Maat report stated. The report also blamed the three major parties "because they were implicated in concluding a deal with the NDP." "They approved turning a blind eye to NDP fraudulent tactics in return for receiving assurances that they would win dozens of seats unopposed," the Maat report claimed. In response, leaders of Wafd, Tagammu and Nasserist parties said the charges were entirely unfounded. Mahmoud Abaza, leader of Wafd, said it was impossible to make a deal with the NDP because the ruling party was keen to field candidates for all seats. Abaza, however, admitted that in some cities, such as Mahala Al-Kubra, where riots broke out on 6 April, the NDP decided to withdraw its candidates from some districts, leaving its seats to the opposition. Ahmed Hassan, secretary-general of the Nasserist Party, vehemently dismissed any deal with the NDP, announcing that the ruling party was up to its neck in rigging the 8 April elections. "We ask for opening an investigation into this NDP scandal," Hassan said. Meanwhile, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood announced that its call for boycotting the municipal elections had made a local and international impact. Essam El-Erian, a leading Brotherhood official, that turnout rates were as low as one per cent. Abdel-Nasser Qandil, a political activist who is in charge of the Maat Voter Project, said turnout rates were very low, ranging from five per cent in some villages and one per cent in cities and towns. In general, several civil society organisations which monitored the voting agreed that no more than one per cent of registered voters took part in the elections. In international terms, the US gave the strongest reaction to the elections. A press release issued by the White House on 10 April said, "we have been troubled by the reports of harassment, detainment and arrests of opposition candidates and campaign workers in the lead-up to the elections, as well as the allegations that large numbers of opposition candidates were prevented from registering." The release triggered a quick response from the Foreign Ministry, with spokesman Hossam Zaki emphasising that the White House's statement did not reflect a sound understanding of the internal political situation in Egypt.
