Hard times for Heshmat
Does parliament's rapid removal of one of its Muslim Brotherhood MPs hearken an escalation in the chronic confrontation between the government and the banned group? Gamal Essam El-Din reports
The Group of 17, a coalition of Islamist members of parliament working under the umbrella of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, was dealt a heavy blow this week. On Sunday, the assembly rapidly and overwhelmingly -- with a majority of 337 votes -- decided to strip prominent Brotherhood MP Gamal Heshmat of his parliamentary membership.
In doing so, the assembly was complying with a report prepared by the Cassation Court about Heshmat's victory in the 2000 parliamentary elections in Damanhour -- the provincial capital of the Northern Delta governorate of Al-Beheira. The court said that a grave vote-counting error had stripped Khairi Kalag, a liberal-oriented Al-Wafd Party candidate, the right to compete against Heshmat in the district's run-off elections. As a result, the report recommended that a reelection be held between Heshmat and Kalag as soon as possible.
The court's report was rammed through parliament's legislative and constitutional committee on Saturday morning, provoking a wave of protests from some committee members. Adel Eid, a prominent human rights lawyer and an independent Alexandria MP, decided to freeze his membership in the committee because of the "hasty decision against Heshmat". According to Eid, it was clear that the committee was acting upon instructions from members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). "Although the committee chairman [Mohamed Moussa] had promised to form a sub- committee to scrutinise the court's report and supporting documents," Eid said, "all of a sudden he reneged on his promise -- even though on previous occasions the committee had rejected several similar court reports regarding elections for insignificant reasons."
In response, Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Kamal El-Shazli asserted that parliament was not acting upon instructions from anyone, but rather, "expressing the people's will", as Sorour put it. After all, argued El-Shazli, the competition in Damanhour is between the Brotherhood's Heshmat and the Wafd's Kalag. "The NDP has no interest in tilting towards either of them. Our major interest is showing respect to Cassation Court reports on elections," said El-Shazli. NDP majority speaker Hussein Megawer characterised the NDP's stance as a reflection of its "strict compliance with court reports on elections".
In fact, an unprecedented number of NDP MPs were in attendance early Sunday, rallying behind the call to strip Heshmat of his seat. Surprisingly, all the cabinet ministers, who also double as NDP deputies, were there, at least until they voted to kick Heshmat out, after which they themselves hurried out of the building. Even Information Minister Safwat El-Sherif, who is also the NDP secretary- general, showed up for the historic session.
And thus the Group of 17 became the Group of 16 -- but not without a verbal clash between Brotherhood and NDP MPs that became so intense that Sorour eventually expelled Mohamed Mustafa, a Brotherhood MP from Alexandria, from the assembly's hall.
Most Brotherhood MPs called parliament's "hasty" decision to strip Heshmat of his seat "a clear manifestation of the NDP's double standards". According to Heshmat, "the fact that the assembly decided not to pursue a similar scenario against prominent NDP deputies, despite the Court of Cassation having invalidated the legality of their election, makes this clear."
Hamdi Hassan, another Brotherhood MP, recalled the assembly's decision in December 2001 not to strip Amal Othman, the assembly's deputy speaker, of her membership, even though the court report invalidating the legality of her elections indicated that they had been rife with "grave irregularities". One example mentioned by the report estimated that as many as 2,797 citizens were barred by security forces from voting for Othman's rival for the Giza district seat, who is none other than Ma'moun El- Hodeibi, the brotherhood's newly-appointed Supreme Guide.
More than 950 election appeals have been filed with the Cassation Court. Thus far, parliament's legislative and constitutional affairs committee has rejected 203 of these, despite nearly half of them having invalidated the legality of the elections being disputed. Since 1991 the assembly has never approved a report submitted by the Cassation Court on election appeals.
Independent MPs Mohamed Kiwita and Mortada Mansour lent their support to the Brotherhood on this issue, arguing that the committee had previously insisted on setting up sub-committees to scrutinise Cassation Court reports on election results. "The same standard should apply to Heshmat's case," Kiwita said.
In contrast, The Wafd Party's spokesman, Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour, supported NDP parliament members. This caused a split in his party's ranks, as its other two deputies, Mahmoud El-Shazli and Mohamed Abdel-Alim, refused to toe Abdel-Nour's line. Noma'n Gomaa, the Wafd Party's chairman, decided on Monday to refer both to investigation on charges of partisan misconduct.
On the other hand, Ragab Hemeida, the sole representative of Al-Ahrar (liberal) Party urged all deputies to strip Heshmat of his seat "because this is a manifestation of God's will and we all have to submit to it".
According to Heshmat, the irregularities cited by the court report were not even as grave as those cited in Othman's district. The report said an error in vote-counting had stripped Kalag of 1007 votes, which were added to another candidate, Hassan Salem's tally. As a result, Salem, with 4427 votes, ended up narrowly making it to the run-off instead of Kalag. Heshmat, meanwhile, had received 8056 votes in this initial contest.
Heshmat says that even if there had been no errors, Kalag could never have defeated him in the run-offs, when Heshmat "got more than 13,000 votes compared to Salem's less than 5,000". In any case, said Heshmat, he was ready to run against Kalag in Damanhour again to prove that his victory was not a fluke.
Brotherhood MPs are not as optimistic, and Heshmat himself has strong suspicions that the decision to strip him of his parliamentary seat may herald a renewed government battle against the Brotherhood. "I hope the way the government handled the run-off elections in Al-Raml last June won't be repeated against me in Damanhour," Heshmat told Al- Ahram Weekly. Whereas two brotherhood candidates had soundly defeated two NDP candidates in the original 2000 Al-Raml elections, the reelection resulted in a solid NDP victory.
Heshmat -- who is widely considered the modern face of the Brotherhood despite criticism over the record number of campaigns he conducts to ban "trivial" things like Miss Egypt beauty contests -- believes that the 11 September attacks in the US and America's war against terrorism have given the government a golden opportunity to step up its fierce crackdown on the Brotherhood. "Plus," he says, "Brotherhood MPs were aiming to direct embarrassing questions to the government during this parliamentary session." Parliament's action against Heshmat brings the number of deputies who lost their seats to four.
