New game plan

Shaden Shehab assesses the results of the Press Syndicate elections

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END OF THE STEPS BATTLE? The Press Syndicate elections this week provoked a controversy on union mandate. Should journalists engage in national politics or stick to defending strictly professional concerns? The elections resulted in a diverse council that might not resolve the controversy

After a fiercely fought campaign, journalists elected a new Press Syndicate chairman and 12- member council on Saturday, and while the results came as no great surprise they do give an indication of what journalists believe their syndicate should be doing.

That the council is now dominated by independent candidates has allowed various opposing camps to claim victory, with pro- government journalists, leftists and the Muslim Brotherhood all saying the results vindicate their respective positions. They have been joined by government officials, who also appear to have welcomed the results.

Of the 5,099 Press Syndicate members 3,590 cast votes. Makram Mohamed Ahmed -- dubbed the government's candidate -- romped home to victory with 2,339 votes compared with 1,120 votes for his rival, Middle East News Agency journalist Ragaai El-Merghani, a Nasserist and widely seen as the opposition choice. The three other candidates for chairman's post shared just 46 votes between them while 85 ballot papers were spoiled.

The scenes of rival candidates smiling and hugging when the results were announced belied the viciousness of a campaign characterised by an unprecedented level of mud-slinging. Ahmed was the target of sustained attempts at character assassination, with leaflets distributed up to election day accusing him of, among other things, embezzlement, being a government lackey, supporting normalisation with Israel and possessing such a fiery temper that he often harangued and insulted his colleagues.

"The accusations were a shame though, on the evidence of the ballot box, a majority of journalists held Ahmed in rather more respect than his opponents anticipated," said leading columnist Salama Ahmed Salama.

Why did Ahmed win the lion's share of votes?

"There is a change of mood," says Salama. "Although outgoing chairman Galal Aref achieved some things, journalists believe that internal struggles and partisan politics took precedence over improving the conditions of the profession. The impression has been that the syndicate is at war with the state, and journalists have seen that they have won little from this battle."

"Ahmed was the stronger personality and is capable of providing practical solutions. His relationship with government officials will be an advantage in the coming period. If we are talking about ending custodial sentences, legislating for access to information, increasing salaries and pensions and similar issues, they are problems that have to be solved in dialogue with the state. Ahmed can conduct that dialogue without offering concessions. The evidence is that he has already been able to convince the prime minister to increase journalists' salaries by LE200."

It is an increase, though, that left some feeling humiliated, and which others viewed as a bribe.

"Journalists are not beggars to be thrown a few pounds by the government in order to elect its candidate," said one journalist who preferred to remain anonymous. Yet it has become customary in recent years for the government to announce an increase in salaries ahead of elections in order to bolster the position of its preferred candidate.

Aref, for one, has few doubts that the extra LE200, together with media campaigns on state television and in the state-owned press, propelled Ahmed to victory. "The propaganda," he says, "was dumbfounding."

"Journalists who voted for El-Merghani are joining other sections of society in sending a protest to the government," says prominent journalist Salah Eissa. "They do not want to be seen on the same side as the government or pro- government journalists."

Out of 81 candidates vying for the 12-council seats, the Nasserists won two, as did the Muslim Brotherhood, with the remaining eight going to independent candidates, some of them deemed pro-government. It reverses the power balance that first emerged in 2003 when leftists and the Brotherhood took control of eight council seats.

Six out of the nine members of the outgoing council who nominated themselves were re- elected -- Nasserists Yehia Qallash and Gamal Fahmi, Muslim Brothers Mohamed Abdel-Quddous and Salah Abdel-Maqsoud, and independents Yasser Rizk and Mohamed Kharaga. The surprise is that the six new members are independents with no known political affiliations. Qallash, Fahmi, Abdel-Qoddous and Abdel-Maqsoud won considerably less votes than some of their independent rivals. Qallash and Abdel-Maqsoud have been council members since 1995 and Abdel-Qoddous since 1985.

"Our low vote was a result of rigging," claimed Qallash.

Following the 10pm announcement that Ahmed had won the chair of the syndicate, mumblings began that the election had been rigged. They were compounded when the head of the judicial committee supervising the ballot said the results would be announced in a Cairo court in accordance with Law 100 regulating professional syndicate elections. Journalists protested and Ahmed himself requested the judicial committee announce the results in the syndicate as in previous elections "because journalists are naturally doubtful". The situation became uglier when Nasserist and Islamist candidates, realising they had lost, openly accused judges of fraud.

"One of the judges told us that 10 ballot boxes [out of 20] left the syndicate and that he and other judges had been under pressure," Qallash told the Weekly. Indeed, Qallash and his colleagues kept up a barrage of chants, shouting the "elections are null" and demanding a fresh ballot during the announcing of results at 1am on Sunday. Such was the chaos that it took several hours for the presiding judge to announce the winners, and the judicial committee supervising the poll expressed deep dismay at what it described as "unforgivable insults" directed to the judges.

"Those people claiming the elections were rigged are fooling themselves. The truth is that for the last four years the syndicate has ignored issues effecting the profession as council members pursued their own agendas," says Eissa. "El-Merghani lost, as did two leftists from the outgoing council, while two others survived, though with a much smaller share of the vote."

"It is possible that Qallash and Fahmi succeeded as a result of personal relations and because they have been on the council for so long they are familiar faces and not because they represent any particular trend," says Salama. "Abdel-Maqsoud won because of his record in improving the journalists' healthcare programme and Abdel-Qoddous because he is a popular figure, often found on the steps of the syndicate with a loudspeaker to his lips during protests."

"The new elected chairman and Press Syndicate Council show that journalists are tired of their syndicate being in thrall to party politics. They have voted to build bridges with the government and give negotiations a chance," thinks Eissa.

Ahmed told the Weekly that he has already "forgiven" whatever was said about him during the course of the campaign and hopes "the council will work to an agenda useful to all journalists". He is also on record as saying that he will resign if he fails to fulfil his campaign promises within two months.