CAIRO: Mass disqualifications for students running for Student Union in Egyptian universities left only one candidate standing in every committee, bringing the elections to a close on Monday. “All our candidates were eligible and they were running independently with no religious or political affiliations and their disqualification is unconstitutional,” said Mohamed Abdel Kawy, a student at Helwan University and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Abdel Kawy told Daily News Egypt that there were 1,220 candidates in Helwan University, the majority of whom were disqualified and removed from the final list of candidates with no explanation. “This has become more of an appointment system. The security and youth affairs department agree on a candidate and give him the position,” said Abdel Kawy. “The elections are nothing but a charade, we wake up one day to find someone that we don't even know representing us,” said Bassem Mahmoud, the spokesperson for the Association of Egyptian Students. Students say that the whole electoral process has been unfair since its start and that there have been many attempts to keep the students from running for Student Union. According to Hofayza Hamada, a student at the University of Helwan and member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the date the university started accepting nominations was not announced in advance and the time to submit the applications was limited to only two hours. “There was a lot of organized chaos meant to keep the students from submitting their applications,” says Hamada. Students are blaming the 1979 student bill for the current situation. The bill was made to organize student activities in Egyptian universities in 1979 and is still effective. It imposes a number of restrictions on the students' activities as it bans student organizations that are based on religious or political ideologies; allows for security intervention in the choice of candidates; obliges students to get an official permission from the dean of the university to be able to organize events and gives the presidents of universities the right to choose the date of the elections without any restrictions. “The bill of 1979 is tailored to keep students with any political affiliations other than the ruling party out of the student activities,” said Mahmoud. Abdel Kawy said that there will be a “deterring reaction” from all the political groups in Egyptian universities in response to Monday's results. There have been nationwide protests in universities imputing the legitimacy of Monday's elections.
