12 - 18 April 2001
Issue No.529
|
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 April 2001 Issue No.529 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Another test for the NDP
The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) is expected to face its toughest competition in 20 years during Shura Council elections
Interior Minister Habib El-Adli announced last week that mid-term elections of the consultative upper house, the Shura Council, will be conducted under a month-long, three-stage voting system instead of the previous one-day affair, reports Gamal Essam El-Din. El-Adli, addressing a meeting with police officers at the Alexandria Security Department, suggested that this was to comply with last year's ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court that general elections must be conducted under complete judicial supervision.
According to El-Adli, Shura Council elections will require increased efforts to eliminate the names of emigrants and the deceased from voter lists, as well as to increase the number of polling stations. "The Shura's constituencies, compared with those of the parliament, are larger in geographical size. This is why we have to make sure that the number of voters in each polling station does not exceed 1,500," El-Adli explained. There were many complaints during last year's parliamentary elections that individual polling stations simply could not cope with the numbers of voters.
The Shura Council mid-term elections are expected to take place from 16 May to 15 June. Kamal El-Shazli, Minister of State for parliamentary affairs and NDP assistant secretary-general, recently announced that the NDP will begin nominating its candidates on 19 April. "Nominations will take five days and those vying for inclusion on the party's ticket should know quite well that good reputation and great popularity are two basic factors to gain the party's official candidacy," El-Shazli asserted.
El-Shazli revealed that a new system will be adopted in selecting NDP candidates which gives party members at the district level the absolute right to nominate candidates. "The preferred candidates will be determined according to how many votes they receive in a secret ballot and this is what we call the down-up system," El-Shazli said.
The elections will witness competition for 88 seats, while 44 persons will be appointed by President Mubarak -- in all, half of the council's 264 seats. Shura Council terms are for six years, but half of its members are chosen by a draw to lose their seats after three years. These deputies are then eligible for re-election or re-appointment.
Within this context, some of the NDP's most prestigious members on the Shura Council will lose their seats. Topping the list of appointees are two former prime ministers, Atef Sedki and Ali Lutfi, and five former ministers, Hassan El-Alfi (Interior), Ahmed Nouh (Supply), Adel Ezz (Education and Scientific Research), Mahmoud Mahfouz (Health) and Youssef Sabri Abu Taleb (Defence). As for current ministers, two will lose their membership -- Information Minister Safwat El-Sherif and Minister of State for Social Affairs Amina El-Guindy. Other NDP losers are three Shura committee chairmen -- Mohamed Farid Khamis (Industry), Mohamed Farag Mohsen (Legislative Affairs), and Mohamed Said El-Dakak (Arab Affairs). Samir Tobar, head of the NDP's economic committee, and Tharwat Abaza, the Shura Council's deputy speaker, and the editors of four national daily newspapers are also on the block.
Although most of these figures are expected to be re-appointed, informed sources reveal that President Hosni Mubarak will choose some new appointees as well. These will likely include current Prime Minister Atef Ebeid, Interior Minister Habib El-Adli and Finance Minister Medhat Hassanein. Mubarak is also expected to renew the membership of two opposition figures -- Rifaat El-Said, secretary-general of the left-wing Tagammu Party, and Ahmed El-Sabahi, head of the Umma Party. On the other hand, the membership of opposition figures Mohamed Abdel-Al, chairman of the Social Justice Party, and Mohamed Farid Zakaria, deputy chairman of the Liberal Party, is not likely to be renewed. The elected members due to lose their Shura seats are Ahmed El-Ammawi, Minister of Manpower; Nabih El-Alkami, head of NDP's Youth Secretariat and Mohamed Ragab, the NDP speaker on the Shura Council.
Unlike previous elections, in which the NDP easily secured landslide victories, the upcoming competition for Shura Council seats is expected to be the fiercest in recent memory. Three developments have made things more difficult for the ruling party. The first is last year's ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court that general elections must be placed under complete judicial supervision. "This ruling encouraged all major political forces, especially the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, to run for all kinds of elections," says independent MP Adel Eid. This led to the second and third developments. "In less than six months, the NDP faced two dramatic setbacks in the elections of the People's Assembly and the Lawyers' Syndicate, while Muslim Brothers emerged as the major winner. This is why, I think, that Shura Council elections will be a hard test for the NDP's leading officials," Eid says.
Worse still for the ruling party, most major opposition parties plan to contest the Shura elections. Noman Gomaa, leader of the Wafd Party, asserted that his party's modest results in the recent parliamentary elections were largely due to its boycott of previous elections, especially those of the Shura Council.
But various commentators have pointed out that the elections will be the hardest ever for the NDP not because of the recent Muslim Brotherhood victories, but primarily due to the NDP old guard's resistance to any attempts at reform. "This was clear in the fact that the recent NDP overhaul turned out to be greatly insignificant, if not a fiasco," says Eid.
A large number of NDP candidates who lost in parliamentary elections have decided to challenge party instructions and contest the Shura mid-terms. Should these candidates win seats on the Shura Council, this will reinforce defection trends in the NDP and make many of its members, either in the People's Assembly or the Shura Council, feel little obligation to toe the party line in future parliamentary sessions.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page