Al-Ahram Weekly Issue No. 251 14 - 20 December 1995
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

Fraud claims rejected

By Jailan Halawi

The new People's Assembly met for the first time in a procedural session yesterday and re-elected Dr Ahmed Fathi Sorour as Speaker by a sweeping majority of 436 votes out of 438 cast.

Ahmed Hamadi and El-Sayed Rashed were also re-elected as deputy speakers, winning 415 and 381 votes respectively. Independent Ahmed Taha nominated himself for the deputy speaker's post but garnered only 34 votes.

The Assembly later sent a cable to President Hosni Mubarak, pledging to "truly represent the free will of the people". The house expressed esteem for Mubarak's "determination to promote democracy, freedom and the supremacy of law", and described the parliamentary elections as a "historic testimonial to the president's unrelenting support for democracy".

Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Mohamed Bedeir El-Menshawi, chief of the Interior Ministry's elections department, defended the performance of the security forces during the elections, although he conceded there had been some irregularities.

In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Menshawi denied opposition charges that some voters were turned back by police stationed outside polling stations. "We cannot and did not prevent anyone from exercising his right to vote," Menshawi said. "Our task was to secure the polling stations and not to promote a certain candidate at the expense of another."

Menshawi also rejected opposition charges that some ballot boxes were fraudulently stuffed with votes for candidates of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). "This could never happen," he asserted, "but assuming that it did, why didn't those candidates report the matter to the chief of the polling station, the nearest police station or even the district prosecutor?"

But Menshawi conceded that some candidates had stormed polling stations and rigged the vote. "I cannot deny that this took place at some stations, but our orders were to secure the stations from the outside... Police can intervene inside only at the request of the head of the station."

Menshawi also acknowledged that "a limited number of violations" had been committed by the security forces.

"Assume that we were around 40,000 or 50,000 men. Is it logical that not one of us would commit an irregularity?" he asked. A small number of officers were currently being questioned, he said, and would be suspended, or even dismissed, if found guilty of violating the law.

Menshawi insisted that the police forces, and not the law breakers, had the upper hand in the two rounds of elections. "But in the first round, there was a large number of constituencies, and violence had not been expected in some of them," he said. The outbreak of violence in those constituencies alerted the police to the need to strengthen their presence during the next round. "As a result," he continued, "our presence prevented dramatic events from assuming even more serious proportions in the second round".

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