21 - 27 June 2001
Issue No.539
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 June 2001 Issue No.539 |
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Getting down to Shura business
Following three-stage elections, the Shura Council will hold procedural sessions next week to elect a speaker and two deputies and swear in new members, reports Gamal Essam El-Din
The Shura Council will meet on Sunday to elect a speaker and two deputies. The election will be part of three procedural sessions which follow three stages of mid-term balloting to fill 88 council seats. The sessions will also witness the swearing-in of new members and the election of chairmen for nine committees.
Incumbent Mustafa Kamal Helmi is expected to be re-elected as speaker by an overwhelming majority for a fifth term. Mohamed Mursi and Tharwat Abaza are also expected to be re-elected as deputy speakers.
Exercising his constitutional powers, President Hosni Mubarak will appoint 44 council members, bringing to 132 the total number of newly elected and appointed members.
During the third and final stage of the council's mid-term elections, held last Thursday in eight governorates, including Cairo and Alexandria, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) won 16 seats. Successful NDP candidates included businessman Sayed El-Rawas in Cairo's southern district of El-Sayeda Zeinab. El-Rawas, an agent for a Japanese auto-maker, had been barred by the Administrative Court from running in the elections on the grounds that he had evaded military service and could barely read and write. But El-Rawas was able to continue his candidacy by contesting the ruling before Cairo's Urgent Matters Court.
Over the three stages of the Shura elections, the NDP won 74 seats. The remaining 14 seats (15.9 per cent) went to independent candidates. The NDP had fielded 92 candidates in the elections that began on 16 May and ended on 13 June.
In the first stage, conducted from 16 to 22 May, the NDP won 24 seats, while six of its candidates were unsuccessful. In the second stage, which ran from 27 May to 2 June, the NDP won 21 seats. Four of its candidates failed to win seats. In the third stage, which lasted from 7 to 13 June the NDP captured 29 seats but four of its candidates lost.
As many as 851 candidates had indicated their desire to compete during the registration period from 19-24 April, but this number dropped later to 697, compared to 397 in 1998. The candidates included 29 opposition hopefuls, 35 women and 13 Christians. They all failed.
Two candidates for the banned Muslim Brotherhood also failed. They were Hamdi Zahran, a doctor, in Beni Sueif governorate, and Mohamed Amer, an engineer, in Kafr El-Sheikh governorate. The Brotherhood said at least 40 of its members were arrested, but later released, in a determined effort by security forces to intimidate its members and dissuade them from running. The Brotherhood has 17 members in the People's Assembly, forming the largest opposition bloc in parliament. The second stage of the Shura elections was marred by acts of violence in which two police officers were injured.
Interior Ministry sources announced that the voter turnout ranged between 10 and 20 per cent.
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