3 - 9 May 2001
Issue No.532
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 3 - 9 May 2001 Issue No.532 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
The fiercest to date
The Shura Council's mid-term elections are remarkable in a number of ways. For one thing they are more competitive and more exciting than usual, owing not to any change in the role of the council but because of transformations in the overall political environment. The council's decision-making powers, after all, are as limited now as they have been since it was founded in 1981.
The anticipation surrounding the elections is a result of two developments. For the first time the elections will be held under judicial supervision. Shura Council constituencies are three or four times the size of their People's Assembly counterparts. The second development is the fact that these elections comprise an addendum to the most recent People's Assembly election, in which a large number of National Democratic Party (NDP) leaders lost their seats, and in which the NDP conspicuously failed to prevent members from standing against one another.
It is the competition within the NDP, in fact, that looks set to most fuel excitement, since the opposition parties are only marginally involved, with a grand total of just 30 candidates. Such paltry figures -- individual party candidates range from one -- the Nasserist Party, to 12 -- Al-Wafd -- notwithstanding, this too suggests that the present elections will amount to a new and improved version of the last People's Assembly elections.
* This week's soapbox speaker is deputy head of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
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