The ruling NDP is accused of rigging the parliamentary by-elections of two Cairo districts, reports Gamal Essam El-Din On Saturday, Magdi Allam and Yasser Salah, two members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), were sworn in as two new members of the People's Assembly, Egypt's lower house of parliament. The swearing-in took place despite fierce objections from civil society organisations that Allam and Salah won their seats in parliament by fraud. Civil society organisations said on 27 December that the parliamentary by- elections in Cairo's two districts of Manial and Al-Zawya Al-Hamra, and the Upper Egypt governorate district of Al-Monshaa were marred by a plethora of irregularities and police interference in favour of NDP candidates. The Supreme Election Commission (SEC), headed by chairman of the Cassation Court Adel Zaki Andrawis, however, said no irregularities were registered and that the ruling NDP candidates had received the majority of votes. In a public announcement, SEC said that in West Cairo's district of Manial, NDP candidate Allam won 14,146 votes. Independent election monitors and the Maat Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights Studies, however, said the Manial by-elections were marred by a low turnout and a heavy police presence. "The few citizens who bothered to vote were barred from voting by police forces while the voting process itself lacked any kind of judicial supervision," said Maat. Other independent election monitors and journalists said vote- buying was also rampant and that candidates were forced to pay between LE100 to LE150 per vote. Monitors said the number of votes Allam got was too much and that in previous elections the Manial voters had never exceeded 4,000. Allam's rival candidates also protested that their voters were barred by police forces from voting. Iman Bibars, an NDP female member who opted to run as independent, said that she tried her best to contact NDP chairman President Hosni Mubarak to urge him to stop police forces and official monitors from rigging the Manial election in favour of Allam. Bibars got 2,995 votes while the two candidates from the opposition Democratic Front and Wafd parties, Ashraf Balba and Essam Shiha, scored a mere 199 and 51 votes respectively. Manial's parliamentary seat became vacant last month after Shahinaz El-Naggar, a businesswoman who won the seat in the 2005 elections, opted to resign in favour of marrying NDP heavyweight and business tycoon Ahmed Ezz. In 2005, El-Naggar won just 3,000 votes after spending not less than LE5 million. SEC also said that in Cairo's east district of Al-Zawya Al-Hamra, NDP candidate Salah got 27,512 votes or more than any of the 13 rival candidates. Maat said the number of votes Salah garnered were too much and entirely unfounded. The centre's independent monitors said the turnout rate was very low, just three per cent of registered Al-Zawya Al-Hamra voters. The Arab Institution for Support of Civil Society said stuffing boxes with votes was rampant in the Al-Zawya Al-Hamra district and that security forces barred independent monitors from attending the voting and vote- counting process. "Police forces took full control of the voting process, manipulating it in favour of the NDP candidates." Al-Zawya Al-Hamra's parliamentary seat became vacant after its long-time representative in the People's Assembly Mohamed Sayed Ahmed died in November. In the by-elections of the Upper Egypt governorate of Sohag's district of Al-Monshaa, SEC said NDP candidate Ismail Abu Kriesha won after it pulled in 36,742 votes. Al-Monshaa's seat became vacant after its parliamentary representative Farouk Abu Kriesh died last month. The Maat Centre said the by-elections of Manial, Al-Zawya Al-Hamra and Al-Monshaa "emphasise that in the absence of judicial supervision, rigging and fraud will remain the hallmark of Egyptian general elections. "This also means that all future elections will be subject to rampant rigging practices." The centre called for amending Article 88 of the constitution which would place elections under full judicial supervision. "Constitutional amendments eliminating judicial supervision means that all hopes that Egypt will see fair and free elections in the future were dashed and that Article 88 should be re-amended to revive these hopes again," Maat said.
