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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Bar elections at long last
By Mona El-NahhasA two-week lawyers' sit-in at the downtown headquarters of the Bar Association ended last Thursday after a date was finally set for organising syndicate elections. Counsellor Mahfouz Shouman, head of a judicial committee in charge of supervising elections at professional syndicates, decided that elections at the Bar Association would take place on 1 July. Elections at branch syndicates in the different governorates will be organised three weeks later.
According to Shouman, condidates for membership and chairmanship of the councils of the general and branch syndicates should register their names between 21 and 31 May. The candidate lists will be posted between 10 and 16 June. Anyone who objects to certain names on the lists of voters should file an appeal between 16 and 17 June. According to this schedule, lawyers have one month for their electoral campaigns, starting on 1 June.
Lawyers were relieved after Shouman set an election date, but they expressed fears of possible government interference in the election process.
Ahmed Nasser, a Wafdist candidate for the post of syndicate chairman, warned that the result would be "very tragic on all levels," if the government attempted to manipulate election results. "All we want from the government is to stay away from our syndicate and leave it to us to decide our future," he said. Nasser also complained that the time allowed candidates for campaigning is short.
Nasserist candidate Sameh Ashour expressed satisfaction with Shouman's decision, "although it came rather late." Ashour does not believe that the government will be impartial. "I doubt it very much," he said, adding that "lawyers will not watch helplessly if the government took sides."
"Lawyers would never allow the government to impose certain candidates on them," said lawyer Mohamed El-Damati in an obvious allusion to Raga'i Attiya, whom the ruling National Democratic Party backs for the post of syndicate chairman. Islamist lawyer Fatema Rabie believes that the Bar Association crisis has now been resolved. "Even if the coming council did not meet lawyers' expectations, it would still be better than the syndicate being placed under sequestration," she said.
Shouman took the decision to calm angry lawyers, who were on the verge of starting a hunger strike if an election date was not set. The lawyers began to unleash their wrath on 27 April, following a decision to extend the judicial supervision imposed on the Bar Association by three months, ending on 24 July. Although the reason given for the extension was to allow time for completing the revision of voters' lists, it was viewed by the majority of lawyers as a government trick intended to delay elections. The decision had been taken by Counsellor Wahid Mahmoud, chairman of a judicial committee charged with running the association's affairs after the Court of Cassation ended last October a three-year sequestration period.
