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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 9 -15 November 2000 Issue No.507 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 9 -15 November 2000 Issue No.507
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Books Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Softening the blow
By Gamal Essam El-DinSince it was established by former President Anwar El-Sadat in 1978, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) never suffered the kind of loss it incurred in Saturday's run-offs of the second stage of parliamentary elections. If anything, the party used to go from one landslide victory to another. But history, it seems, has stopped repeating itself.
In the first two stages of the elections, between 18 October and 4 November, the NDP was dealt severe blows and suffered an unprecedented loss of seats. Only 100 out of 282 contested seats went to the NDP. That translated into a staggering statistic: 182 seats gone.
In an attempt to soften the blow, the Interior Ministry said that 124 independents who won seats in the two stages had declared themselves NDP members. This swelled NDP ranks to 224 seats, or 79 per cent of seats up for grabs. The same pattern is expected in the third and final stage of the balloting which began yesterday.
The likely prize for the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, which continued its surprisingly strong showing, is to be named the leading opposition group in the next parliament. Out of 14 Brotherhood members who qualified to the run-offs as independents, 10 won seats, raising to 15 the number of seats won by the Brotherhood in the two stages. The outgoing People's Assembly included one Brotherhood member. In the third stage, between 8 and 14 November, the Brotherhood is fielding 28 candidates against 160 from the NDP.
By contrast, three opposition parties -- the liberal Wafd, leftist Tagammu and Nasserist parties -- could only manage nine seats between them.
Voters, revitalised by judicial supervision, sent a strong message to the ruling NDP
photo: Abdel-Wahab El-Seheiti
The second stage, between 29 October and 4 November, covered nine governorates: Daqahliya, Sharqiya, Gharbiya, Kafr Al-Sheikh, Damietta, Northern Sinai, Southern Sinai, the Red Sea and Aswan. A total of 1,386 candidates competed for 134 parliamentary seats in 67 constituencies.
Unlike the first relatively subdued stage, held between 18 and 24 October, stage two was positively deadly. Three people were killed and about 40 were injured. In the Gharbiya governorate district of Kafr Al-Zayyat, supporters of NDP candidate Fathi El-Baradie clashed with supporters of his independent rival Talaat Abdel-Qawi. As a result, two were left dead and 15 seriously injured. A third was killed in Damietta. Abdel-Qawi, an internist, was the NDP candidate in 1995 but lost to El-Baradie, a professor of architecture at Ain Shams University. In Kafr Al-Zayyat, Hassanein El-Shura, the Brotherhood's candidate, won the workers' seat -- two days after his arrest.
In Tanta, the administrative capital of Gharbiya, at least 20 trucks packed with central security forces were stationed outside polling stations in a show of force against the Brotherhood's candidate Mohamed El-Azabawi. A clash between the forces and El-Azabawi's supporters during the voting left 20 people wounded. What effect the violence had on the outcome is academic; El-Azabawi won the professionals' (fi'at) seat, moving past veteran parliamentarian Ibrahim Awwara.
It was in Gharbiya that Brotherhood candidates scored their best results, winning five seats. In addition to Kafr Al-Zayyat's El-Shura and Tanta's El-Azabawi, three Brotherhood candidates, Ali Laban, Mahfouz Helmi and Mustafa El-Adli, won seats in the districts of Qoutour, Mahalla and Bishbish. Laban beat out veteran parliamentarian Fikri El-Gazzar.
In the second stage, the NDP won 43 seats and lost 91. The losers included names which had come to be synonymous with the party: Salah El-Tarouti, chairman of the outgoing parliament's Culture, Information and Tourism Committee; banker Abdel-Rahman Baraka; Mahmoud Abu Gharib, head of the NDP's Farmers Committee; Galila Awwad, a veteran parliamentarian for Southern Sinai, and Taha Ghalwash, secretary-general of the Menoufiya governorate.
Some NDP parliamentarians did manage to retain their seats. Mahmoud El-Sherif, former local administration minister, Mohamed Moussa, chairman of the outgoing parliament's Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee and businessmen Hossam Awad, Said El-Alfi and Mahmoud Abul-Kheir all held their ground. Winners included some new faces such as Hamdi El-Konayessi, chairman of the Egyptian Radio, and Azza El-Kashef, a member of the National Council for Women.
Some seasoned parliamentarians who ran as independents could not escape defeat, including former Irrigation Minister Essam Radi and Tawfiq Zaghloul, a former chairman of a public sector company.
As for opposition parties, the Wafd managed to make up for some of its first stage losses with three candidates winning seats in the run-offs. They include two journalists, Mahmoud El-Shazli and Mohamed Abdel-Alim, plus Fouad Badrawi, the party's secretary-general and a member of the outgoing parliament. So far, the Wafd has gained four seats and is fielding 150 candidates in the third stage.
Only one candidate representing the leftist Tagammu Party, Mokhtar Gomaa in Aswan, won a seat in the run-offs. In all, four seats have so far gone to the Tagammu.
One seat went to Nasserist Party candidate Abdel-Azim El-Maghrabi. El-Maghrabi's name should be added to that of Hamdein Sabahi, a Nasserist journalist who ran as an independent. In total, four candidates belonging to the Nasserist tendency have won seats.
Some independents with no partisan leanings, including famed lawyer Mortada Mansour and prominent parliamentarian Abdel-Moneim El-Oleimi, also won seats.
The NDP's poor performance has shocked the party, the government and political analysts. The four provincial NDP secretaries who lost have been asked to submit their resignations. Two of them, Salah Shaladim and Tarek El-Gindi in Suez and Sharqiya governorates respectively, have complied.
Noman Gomaa, head of the Wafd Party, is to head a group of lawyers in filing lawsuits against candidates who won as independents but later rushed to join NDP ranks. Gomaa asked the Wafd's Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee to "launch a war of lawsuits against independents who breached the trust of voters by joining NDP ranks."
Anger with those who refer to themselves as "NDP-independents" was also vented by some prominent journalists, including Al-Ahram's Ibrahim Nafie and Salama Ahmed Salama, Al-Akhbar's Ibrahim Se'da and Samir Ragab of Al-Gamhouriya.
Related stories:
Another bad day at the office 2 - 8 November 2000
Ruling party 'out of touch' 2 - 8 November 2000
Against the odds 2 - 8 November 2000
Election surprises defy pundits 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000
Poll tough on Islamists 19 - 25 October 2000
The Brothers' last sigh? 5 - 11 October 2000
See Elections 2000
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