6 - 12 December 2001
Issue No.563
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 6 - 12 December 2001 Issue No.563 |
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Compliance at will
The NDP parliamentary majority has refused to drop the membership of three influential deputies, despite judgments by the Court of Cassation. Gamal Essam El-Din reports
Unlike its decision three weeks ago to drop the membership of two businessmen MPs, the People's Assembly refused on Saturday to take similar action against three prominent deputies, despite the Court of Cassation having invalidated the legality of their election.
Shazli
Azmi
Eid
Othman
El-Tahan
Gohar
Lakah
Mutawi'
On 18 November, the Assembly, led by the overwhelming majority of the ruling National Democratic Party [NDP], decided to drop the membership of Rami Lakah and Talaat Mutawei. The action was in accordance with a 27 August ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court that bans MPs from holding dual nationality. Lakah, who is Egyptian-French, is an independent while Mutawi', an Egyptian- American, is an NDP member.
Hussein Megawer, the NDP majority speaker, commented that "the NDP's approval reflects its strict compliance with final court rulings."
On Saturday, however, the Assembly, once again led by the NDP, refused to drop the membership of three prominent parliamentarians, namely Amal Othman, the Assembly's deputy speaker, Hamdi El-Tahan, chairman of the Transport and Telecommunications Committee, and Sayed Gohar, deputy chairman of the Assembly's Youth Committee. All three are NDP members.
The NDP majority's refusal to take action triggered an outcry from several opposition and independent MPs and prompted Adel Eid, an independent from Alexandria, to condemn the refusal as "a clear manifestation of the NDP's double standards." He said the Assembly refused to take action despite the Court of Cassation, the nation's highest, having ruled that the election results in the two constituencies where the three ran, were null and void. This ruling followed the court's investigation and acceptance of 20 appeals contesting the election results in those two constituencies.
In two reports -- not rulings -- presented to the Assembly, the court explained the reasons for declaring the results null and void. In Giza's Doqqi district, where Othman and Gohar were the NDP's official candidates, the court's 12- page report concluded that the elections were marred by interference on the part of the interior ministry. Othman's main rival in that district was Ma'moun El-Hodeibi, a leading figure of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
In the Kom Hamada district of the Nile Delta province of Beheira, where El-Tahan stood as the NDP candidate, the court's report said that police officers intervened aggressively to prevent citizens from voting for his rival. The court estimated that as many as 2,797 citizens were barred from reaching the ballot boxes on election day.
Eid argued that the Court of Cassation's reports on the investigation should carry as much weight as final rulings of the Supreme Administrative Court. "But NDP deputies are acting in accordance with their party's instructions, even if this came at the expense of respect for law, and even if rigging of the elections was amply demonstrated," Eid said.
Eid's words drew criticism from senior NDP figures. Kamal El-Shazli, minister of state for parliamentary affairs and the NDP whip, lashed out at Eid, asking: "If you believe that the interior ministry rigged the elections in favour of NDP candidates, then how did you manage to win your seat? Your allegations are as far from reality as the distance from Cairo to Alexandria."
Eid responded that the NDP's rejection of the reports presented by the Court of Cassation means "a relapse to the Assembly's old and notorious slogan that it is the master of its own decision. This is in spite of the fact that President Hosni Mubarak, following the Shura Council elections last June, told NDP deputies that "the argument that the Assembly is the master of its own decision may be sound, but when rulings are handed down by the Court of Cassation, they should be respected by parliament," Eid said.
For his part, Zakaria Azmi, a prominent NDP deputy and chief of the presidential staff, argued that the position taken by the Court of Cassation on election appeals does not amount to a ruling. "Article 93 of the constitution gives the Court of Cassation the power to investigate appeals contesting election results, but it also gives parliament the final say on those appeals," Azmi said.
Several opposition MPs, however, insisted that NDP deputies were pressured by their leaders to strictly follow the party's line before the current parliamentary session began. Eid told Al-Ahram Weekly that this new policy is in glaring contrast to what happened in the previous session. "In that session, independent deputies, who joined the NDP following the elections in order to swell its ranks in parliament, opted on many occasions not to toe the party's line. This was clear, for example, in the difficulty faced by the party in gaining the approval of its deputies for the Sales Tax and for dropping the parliamentary immunity of some of their colleagues," Eid said.
According to Eid, NDP leaders are using two methods by which to exert pressure. Firstly, Eid believes, they can threaten to dissolve parliament. Secondly, there is the decision asking a legal team to study the possibility of drafting a new electoral law that would give the NDP, as a body, the upper hand.
"NDP leaders presumably believe that the individual candidacy system that is being used now is no longer favourable to the party. The party is seeking to have a system that gives it credit for the success of its candidates, and not the other way round, as was the case with last year's elections. In the aftermath of those elections, 218 independent MPs joined the NDP and gave themselves the credit for giving the NDP a majority in the house," Eid said.
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