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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 April 2000 Issue No. 476 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 April 2000 Issue No. 476
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Summit Features Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Shura debates electoral reform
By Gamal Essam El-Din
Following heated debates, the Shura Council gave its blessings on Saturday to two government-proposed bills aimed respectively at ensuring full judicial supervision of ballot stations and revising the definitions of "worker" and "farmer" ahead of the next parliamentary elections. The two bills did not go well with four deputies who each represented a different opposition party; they argued that these bills fall short of the guarantees required to make "integrity" the hallmark of the coming elections. They also warned that the elections would be rife with hooliganism and extravagant spending on electoral campaigning.
Addressing the Council on Saturday, Kamal El-Shazli, minister of state for parliamentary affairs, said that the amendment of the Political Rights Law reflects the government's keenness to honour President Hosni Mubarak's promise at the inauguration of a new parliamentary session that judicial supervision would be expanded to include all stages of parliamentary elections.
However, the number of members of the judicial authority stands at 9,949, of which 5,661 members will be available to supervise polling stations, El-Shazli added.
The overall number of polling stations, including main and auxiliary stations, is over 42,000. "This means that it is quite impossible to bring this large number of polling stations under actual judicial supervision," the minister stated.
He indicated that in past elections, the main polling stations, whose number stands at 222, were under direct judicial supervision. He added that the auxiliary stations were monitored by local administration [municipal] officials. "Under the new law, an additional number of members of the judiciary will be lined up to supervise the auxiliary stations. They will be required to visit eight auxiliary stations, or more in some cases, provided that they are located close to one another.
The second bill, El-Shazli said, is intended to give MPs greater flexibility in altering their designations as workers, farmers or fi'at (professionals) in the light of the rapidly changing politico-economic conditions in society. El-Shazli argued that the current law is widely believed to be unconstitutional because it stipulates that MPs classified as fi'at, workers or farmers before 15 May 1971 cannot subsequently change their designations.
El-Shazli also indicated that the financial deposit required for contesting parliamentary elections will be raised by the new bill from LE200 to LE1000. "After the 1990 elections, this guarantee was raised from LE20 to LE200. Ten years later, it has to be raised to LE1000 to reflect the rise in rates of inflation," he said.
Justice Minister Farouk Seif El-Nasr pointed out that expanding judicial supervision to include auxiliary polling stations does not mean that members of the judiciary will be required to stay in these stations from the beginning of balloting to the end. "In order to achieve this, as many as 72,780 members of the judiciary would be needed. The constitution states that elections should be conducted under judicial supervision but it does not elaborate on the ways of securing this supervision. The constitution leaves it to the authorities to decide how it should be done," said Seif El-Nasr.
He argued that it was not feasible for the new bill to state that elections be held over more than one day. "This is impossible, because it would be risky to security forces and could even lead to public utilities being damaged. It has never happened throughout Egypt's parliamentary history that elections were staged on more than one day," Seif El-Nasr affirmed.
Countering these official arguments, Rifaat El-Said, the sole representative of the left-wing Tagammu party, sharply criticised the Shura Council's Constitutional Committee for ignoring eight bills submitted by members of the People's Assembly on the amendment of the Political Rights Law. "It is strange that the committee described the bill submitted by the opposition parties, in the name of Tagammu leader Khaled Mohieddin, as unconstitutional. It is extraordinary because the People's Assembly's Committee of Proposals and Complaints debated the bill extensively and never said that it runs against the constitution," said El-Said.
The Constitutional Committee's chairman, Farag Mohsen, responded that the opposition bill is unconstitutional because it seeks to entrust a special judicial council with controlling the entire polling process. "This will give judicial authorities greater powers, although the constitution states that their role is merely confined to the supervision of elections," said Mohsen.
The government bill was also rejected by Ahmed El-Sabahi, leader of the Umma Party, Fahmi Nashed, speaker of the liberal Wafd Party, and Mohamed Farid Zakaria of the Liberal Party.
