CAIRO - Months after turmoil, Egypt's university professors went to polls to elect their leaders. The outcome has defied expectations. More than 80 per cent of the former leaders in state-run universities have been reinstated through the ballot box. “Given that these elections were not marred by violence or fraud, we should respect their results,” said Mohamed Abul Ghar, a co-founder of the March 9 movement, an advocate of university independence. “The opposition previously voiced by the bulk of academics to the former university leaders was not against them in person or their efficiency. It was in protest against their being appointed upon recommendation from the security agencies and their links to the now-disbanded ruling party,” he explained. “The elections, whatever their results reflect genuine choices made by the university staffers and lend legitimacy to the elected leaderships,” said Abul Ghar. The unprecedented campus polls started in early October with electing deans of state-run faculties, followed by presidents of universities. Four university heads have kept their posts, thanks to the ballot box, weeks after they were forced to step down. They are the heads of the universities of Cairo, Beni Sueif, Benha and the Southern Valley. “The electoral college, which conducted Cairo University 's election, will also act as a consultative board to which all major issues to be referred before the university's president takes a decision on them,” Hossam Kamel, the former president of the prestigious institution, said following his win in the election. Hossam quit his post two months ago. “I promise to protect the university's freedom and status,” a jubilant Kamel added. Over the past months, Egypt's 19 public universities have been hit by angry demonstrations staged by lecturers and students alike, demanding the sacking of all leaders of these institutions, allegedly for being loyal to the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak. The embattled leaders of the universities denied the accusation, but many of them eventually bowed and tendered their resignation. They sought to vindicate themselves by contesting the elections. “Although we support democracy and free elections, we still hope that there should be a genuine mechanism to get rid of all faces of the former regime,” said the academic group, the Union of Independent Intellectuals, in the southern Egyptian city of Qena. The group was commenting on the election win scored by the former president of the city's University of Southern Valley Abbas Mansour, who was an official in the formerly governing National Democratic Party. Echoing a fervent demand from opposition politicians, the group has urged Egypt's military rulers to slap a ban on members of Mubarak's party to prevent them from running in any elections for a given period of time. The reinstatement of former university leaders through the ballot box has reinforced fears among many Egyptians that Mubarak loyalists, many of them have registered to vie in next month's legislative election, will return to the parliament.
