Al-Ahram Weekly Issue No. 250 7 - 13 December 1995
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

Bracing for round two

By Gamal Essam El-Din

After denying rumours of a planned boycott, key opposition figures who survived the first round of parliamentary elections on 29 November made preparations throughout the week for yesterday's run-off elections. The boycott rumours circulated after a national newspaper ran a small front page story quoting Ibrahim Dessouki Abaza, assistant-secretary general of the Wafd Party, as saying that the opposition parties were considering a collective walkout from the second round.

Abaza and other opposition figures denied the report. But Mustafa Kamel Murad, chairman of the Liberal Party, said withdrawal from the second round was the subject of consultations between the various opposition parties.

Three hundred and six parliamentary seats were up for grabs in the run-offs, contested by 612 candidates - two for each seat. The two contestants in each constituency had garnered the highest number of votes in the first round, but fell short of the required majority of 50 per cent plus one vote.

The runners included 320 independents, 255 NDP candidates, 14 Wafdists, nine from the Islamist-oriented Labour Party, seven from the leftist Tagammu, five Nasserists and two Liberals.

However, nearly two thirds of the independents are NDP sympathisers or former NDP members, who were likely to rejoin its ranks if they won. Over 20 candidates from the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, running as independents, also took part.

Two of the NDP candidates were cabinet ministers who failed to make it in the first round. They are Ahmed Gweili, minister of supply, running against Mohamed Badawi Dessouki, an independent, in Giza, and Mohamed Ali Mahgoub, Minister of Al-Awqaf (religious endowments), running against the Liberal Party's Mustafa Bakri in the Cairo constituency of Helwan-Tebbin.

The Wafdist hopefuls included Yassin Serageddin, brother of Wafd chairman Fouad Serageddin, who was opposed by independent Hossam El-Badrawi, a doctor and business tycoon, in the Cairo constituency of Qasr Al-Nil; Noaman Gomaa, the Wafd's deputy chairman, whose rival was the NDP's Ismail Hilal in the Giza constituency of Imababa, and Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour, also a businessman, against the NDP's Ahmed Fouad Abdel-Aziz in the Cairo constituency of Al-Waili.

The nine Labour candidates included Abdel-Aziz Ashri against he NDP's Hassan Shibria in Fayoum; Saad Hussein against the NDP's Shafik El-Ganzouri in the Menoufiya constituency of Batanoon, and Younis Abadi against independent Zaki Mehawed in the Alexandria constituency of Moharram Bey.

The candidates of the leftist Tagammu were led by the party's chairman, Khaled Mohieddin, whose failure to win in the first round surprised many observers. Mohieddin ran in his hometown of Kafr Shukr, in the Qalyubia governorate, against independent Ahmed Seif. Other Tagammu candidates included El-Badri Farghali against the NDP's Mohamed El-Tobgi in Port Said and Abul-Ezz El Hariri against the NDP's Abbas El-Sayed in the Alexandria constituency of Karmooz.

The Nasserist Party's most prominent candidate was party leader Diaeddin Dawoud, who ran against independent Mohamed Khalil Qouta in Faraskour near Damietta. Another Nasserist was Sameh Ashour, opposed by independent Mustafa Bakr in the Sohag constituency of Saqalta.

The Liberal Party's two candidates were Hilal Hemeida, the party's secretary-general, who is running against the NDP's Sayed Shaker in the Cairo constituency of Abdin, and Mustafa Bakri, running against Mohamed Ali Mahgoub, minister of Al-Awqaf (religious endowments) in Helwan-Tebbin, south of Cairo.

At least 20 candidates belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood ran as independents. They included Moukhtar Nouh, treasurer of the Bar Association, against the NDP's Mohamed Farouq in the Cairo constituency of Mattariya; Ahmed Salama against independent Yasser El-Dib in Damietta; Ali Fath El-Bab against the NDP's Mohamed Mustafa in Helwan-Tebbin; Mohamed El-Azabawi against independent Abdel-Moneim El-Oleimi in Tanta, provincial capital of Gharbiya governorate; and Abdel-Rehim El-Sheikh against the NDP's Fathi Abdel-Latif in the Alexandria constituency of Moharram Bey.

Other than NDP sympathisers and Brotherhood figures running as independents, a group of genuine independents from various ideological trends also took part. This group included leftist Ahmed Taha against the NDP's Sayed Rostom in the Cairo constituency of Al-Sahel; Nasserist Metwalli El-Nomrosi against the NDP's Ali Radwan, also in Al-Sahel, Nasserist Mohamed El-Badrashini against the NDP's Abdel-Rahman Harira in the Alexandria constituency of Ghorbal; Nasserist Abdel Eid against the NDP's Farouk Rakha in the Alexandria constituency of Bab Sharq and Nasserist Farouk Metwalli against the NDP's Amin Hilal in Suez City.

In addition to Mustafa Bakri, two journalists were also in the running; Nasserist Hamdin Sabahi against independent Ali Abdel-Hafez in the Kafr Al-sheikh constituency of Al-Hamoul and Wafdist Ayman Nour against the NDP's Sobhi Gneidi in the Cairo constituency of Bab Al-Sha'riya.

Three Copts were left in the race. They were Father Salib Matta Sawiris , an independent against the NDP's Reda Wahdan in the Cairo constituency of Shubra; independent Fayek Akhnoukh Boutrous against the NDP's Fathi Abdel-Hamid in another Shubra constituency; and Wafdist Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour against the NDP's Ahmed Fouad Abdel-Aziz in Al-Waili.

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