CAIRO: Opposition groups protested “the rigging and fraud of the People's Assembly elections” in front of the Journalists' Syndicate on Saturday, a day before the runoff elections, with protesters calling for discrediting the PA. “The Journalists' Syndicate is holding this sit-in to support its members like Hamdeen Sabahy and Mostafa Bakry who lost in the PA elections as independent candidates because of the rigging and fraud,” Mohamed Abdel Quddous, head of the freedoms committee at the Journalists' Syndicate, told Daily News Egypt. “This wasn't a battle against the Brotherhood only; it was a battle against all the opposition groups,” Abdel Quddous added. Outspoken journalist and independent candidate in Helwan district, Mostafa Bakry told Daily News Egypt, “We shouldn't stay silent in the face of what happened. This is a government that violated our votes and our dignity; the least thing we can do is say no to that.” Bakry said that ballot box number 47, which included 868 votes in favor of his National Democratic Party competitor, Minister of State for Military Production Sayed Mishaal, was included in the final results, despite being considered invalid during the vote count. “[The government] degraded the Egyptian people and ruined Egypt's reputation,” Bakry said. Bakry said that he would refer his case to the courts and use all legal methods to prove the invalidity of these elections. Independent candidate in Al-Matareya district and Editor in chief of Al-Musawwir magazine, Ezzat Badawi, told Daily News Egypt, “There were 4,200 votes in my favor accounted for in 15 ballot boxes, yet in the final results I got zero votes despite the fact that I voted for myself.” Independent candidate Nermine Ahmed Suleiman in El-Qanater district told Daily News Egypt, “It's unconstitutional for the People's Assembly to consist of only one party which is the NDP.” “How can a single party have 99 percent of the PA?” Suleiman asked. “We got a court order from the Administrative Court annulling the elections in El-Qanater district because the judges have integrity and acknowledge the rigging that took place, but the Supreme Electoral Council hasn't implemented the court order yet,” she said. Supreme Electoral Commission (SEC) spokesman Sameh El-Kashef said during a press conference last week that while some “transgressions” did occur, they “did not undermine the probity and integrity of the first round results.” Independent candidates affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood participated in the sit-in and called for a redo of the elections and for meeting the seven demands for change and reform. “The president has no choice but to admit that the PA is invalid if he wants to have credible presidential elections in 2011 in front of the rest of the world,” MB candidate Mohamed El-Beltagi said. “We will only accept a repeat of the elections if our seven demands are guaranteed including international and direct judicial supervision over the elections, in addition to the complete supervision of Egypt's civil society organizations,” El-Beltagi added. The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) won 217 parliamentary seats in the first round, while Egypt's largest opposition group, the MB, got none, despite having won 88 seats in 2005, representing nearly 20 percent of the outgoing parliament. The Brotherhood and Al-Wafd Party announced last week their withdrawal from the runoff elections on Dec. 5 amid accusations of flagrant violations and rigging in the preliminary round. Former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei initiated a call to all opposition groups to boycott the elections, as the government refused to guarantee free and fair elections and failed to comply with a list of seven demands for change and reform, which included the annulment of the emergency law and reinstating judicial supervision of the elections. “We called for the boycott of the elections from the very beginning,” Karima Al-Hifnawy, member of the National Association for Change and the Kefaya Movement for Change, told Daily News Egypt. “We could see in hindsight that with the absence of direct judiciary supervision, the NDP [had a better chance] of flagrantly rigging and violating the elections even more than the previous years,” Al-Hifnawy said. In 2005, there was direct supervision from judges over each ballot box in every polling station. In this year's elections, however, the judges stayed in the security directorate of each constituency in order to receive complaints of election violations from observing citizens. “This so called elected People's Assembly is illegal and unconstitutional,” she added. “We will all unite together to change this regime.” Activist Kamal Khalil announced during the sit-in that several members of Al-Tagammu Party from 15 governorates, including Helwan, Fayoum and El-Beheira, were also staging a sit-in inside Al-Tagammu Party' headquarters from 10 am to 11 pm on Saturday. They were protesting against the party's decision to participate in the runoff elections and called for the resignation of head of Al-Tagammu Party, Rifaat Al-Saeid. Al-Tagammu Party decided to participate in the runoff elections despite winning only one seat in the first round last Sunday. “Our participation in these elections is what exposed [the NDP's] rigging of the elections … We want to participate in the People's Assembly, even with a small number of candidates, so that any legislation won't be approved without Al-Tagammu voicing its opinion of it,” Al-Saeid previously told Daily News Egypt. The protestors ended the sit-in chanting, “Enough is enough … all injustice must come to an end,” on the tune of Egypt's National anthem.
