NDP versus NDP -- again
By-elections in 23 districts will take place today in spite of 10 court rulings declaring them null and void. Gamal Essam El-Din reports
Parliamentary by-elections are scheduled to take place today in 23 districts in 11 governorates. The by-elections will fill seats left vacant by 17 draft-dodging MPs (16 from the People's Assembly and one from the Shura Council) who submitted their resignations on 12 and 13 November, five who passed away (three from the People's Assembly and two from the Shura Council), and one People's Assembly MP whose parliamentary membership was revoked.
Between 115 and 130 candidates are registered to run in these by-elections. Most of them are either running on the official ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) ticket, or are members of the NDP who have decided to run independently. This dynamic, according to opposition and independent observers, clearly undermines the seriousness of the races.
Opposition parties said they decided to boycott most of these by-elections, with the Wafd Party, for one, calling them "tarnished with illegitimacy and unconstitutionality". The opposition's problem stems from the fact that "a recent series of judicial rulings... have ordered that the by-elections in at least 10 districts, out of 17 left vacant by draft-dodging MPs, must be confined to those who ran in 2000," as the Wafd Party's mouthpiece, Al-Wafd, pointed out.
The Wafd Party said the NDP had forced its draft-dodging MPs to resign rather than be officially stripped of their membership by the assembly. "Had they been stripped of their membership, the NDP would not have been allowed to field candidates," the Wafd Party newspaper said. The fact that the NDP opted to violate constitutional and legal rulings in order to field additional candidates, said Al-Wafd, provides another example that the NDP is still not serious about political reform, and is determined to monopolise political life at any cost.
Shawqi El-Sayed, an independent lawyer and a deputy chairman of the Shura Council's Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee, told Al-Ahram Weekly that "a major feature of parliamentary elections in Egypt in recent years is that -- in addition to being tainted with illegitimacy and unconstitutionality -- most have ended up being NDP-versus-NDP battles, since most contestants are either official NDP candidates or NDP independents." El-Sayed said, "today's by-elections are no exception because they feature another flagrant breach of the law and constitution."
Responding to these accusations, NDP leaders argued that most of the judicial rulings that had been issued were neither final nor binding.
The by-elections in Cairo include three districts: Al-Nozha and Bab Al-Sha'riya (for two People's Assembly seats); and Al-Sayeda Zeinab (a Shura Council seat). In spite of the fact that the Administrative Justice Court (AJC) ordered that the by-elections in these three districts were illegitimate, NDP candidates stepped up their campaigning anyway. Gamal Hanafi, the NDP candidate in Al-Sayeda Zeinab, even received official support from parliamentary speaker Fathi Sorour at an 18 December public rally.
In Alexandria, by-elections will take place in two districts: Al-Montazah (whose MP passed away); and Al-Dekheila (to replace an NDP draft-dodging MP who resigned). The AJC said the latter district's by-election was invalid. In Al-Montazah, all eyes are on the race between NDP candidate and construction magnate Ali Seif and the two Muslim Brotherhood candidates running against him: Ibrahim Abdel-Malek and Khaled Al-Zaafarani. The AJC also said the by-election in Marsa Matruh, west of Alexandria, was invalid.
In the Delta, by-elections will take place in nine districts: one in Beheira; three in Gharbiya; two in Menoufiya; two in Daqahliya; and one in Qalioubiya. The AJC invalidated three of these contests. In the Al-Menoufiya district of Tala, whose seat was left vacant by Abdallah Tayel (the ex-chairman of parliament's economic committee who was kicked out of the assembly after being convicted of embezzling LE262 million and sentenced to 10 years in prison), the NDP's Ahmed Raslan faces intense competition from Talaat El-Sadat, a relative of late President Anwar El-Sadat and one of several contenders vying for the chairmanship of the Liberal (Ahrar) Party.
In Upper Egypt, by-elections will take place in eight districts, three of which were invalidated by the AJC.
In the Giza district of Kerdasah, meanwhile, prominent TV announcer Farida El-Zomor is representing the NDP against Ahmed Nasser, a prominent lawyer and a former Wafdist MP. After her businessman husband was charged with obtaining massive credit facilities without offering adequate collateral in return, the prosecutor-general banned El-Zomor from traveling abroad.
In another dramatic development, the NDP-dominated People's Assembly decided to relinquish its 15 December decision to accept a resignation submitted by Abdel-Rahman Radi, the NDP MP for the North Cairo district of Rod Al-Farag. Radi said on 15 December that he had to submit his resignation "because this is necessary to keep my reputation intact, especially after serving 16 years in parliament."
On 17 December, however, Radi asked Sorour to withdraw his resignation, presenting the speaker with a certificate showing that he is not a draft dodger. At a meeting held on Sunday, Mohamed Moussa, chairman of parliament's legislative and constitutional affairs, said the new Ministry of Defence-certified documents submitted by Radi were genuine. A plenary session of the assembly will probably approve the committee's decision next Saturday.
