CAIRO: Egypt State Information Service (ESIS) held its first media briefing conference Wednesday night to discuss the activities of the High Elections Commission (HEC) which is supervising the Shoura elections due next Monday. Ambassador Ayman El-Kafas, HEC's chairman, gave a brief review of the commission's rules and regulations stressing that each of the 600 candidates competing for the 88 free spots will have a five-minute slot, whether that be on TV or radio. The HEC's spokesman, Judge Samah El-Kashef, said that 600 judges were appointed to supervise only the general electoral committees while the subsidiary committees will have to do with committee chiefs and other civil society organizations' representatives who will act as observers. "We only have 10,000 judges, explained El-Kashef, "we are using only 600 judges so that the judicial system won't be negatively affected by their preoccupation with supervising the elections. Among the most stressed regulations of the commission is the ban of the use of any religious slogans while campaigning, trespassing on the "sanctity of the candidates' personal lives and prohibiting the use of public domains for rallying and any kind of assembly aiming to support a candidate regardless of political affiliation. The HEC will also form a press center at the Egyptian Television and Radio Union (ETRU) on election day to help supply information to reporters on a periodical basis. Besides, the commission set up 10 different landlines to receive any complaints from the nominees and voters. "We have so far received complaints about 100 different candidates, said El-Kashef, "some from candidates against each other, others from police against candidates while others from a certain party against a number of candidates. These complaints were investigated by the HEC, some were dropped for lack of merit while others were referred to the public prosecutor because of their criminal nature. El-Kashef stressed the fact that the HEC does not have the power to disqualify any of the candidates, only the power to refer their cases to court. When asked about the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary nominee who was arrested the day before, El-Kashef denied any knowledge of the fact and commented that "only some candidates' supporters were arrested and not nominees. When asked whether governmental employees will be gathered and shipped to the electoral ballot stations to vote as was the case before in the 2005 elections, El-Kafas said that it's against the law "to use ESIS's buses to transport employees to the ballot stations. Out of the 600 nominees, only three women applied for candidacy. As for the number of Copts running for elections, "we don't know the exact number, said El-Kashef, "we didn't analyze the nominees in such a way; Muslims, Copts and women. The running contenders are divided into 112 party-affiliated candidates, including 96 candidates from the National Democratic Party and 488 independent candidates, 19 of them belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood. Sorting the votes is expected to take no more than three days.
