Al-Ahram Weekly Issue No. 245 2 - 8 November 1995
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

NDP launches campaign

By Gamal Essam El-Din

After a long delay, the National Democratic Party announced last Thursday that it was fielding 439 candidates in the 29 November elections. Five out of parliament's 444 elected seas, will thus remain uncontested by the ruling party. The announcement was made by Kamal El-Shazli, the NDP's assistant secretary-general, a mere 24 hours before nomination applications were due to be filed with the Interior Ministry.

The five uncontested seats are for fe'at (professionals - each constituency elects two MPs, a worker or peasant and a professional) in the constituencies of Dekerness in the governorate of Daqahliya, Rahmaniya in the governorate of Beheira, Al-Staff in the governorate of Giza, Gamaliya in Cairo and Abu Kebir in Sharqiya Governorate.

Three NDP deputies representing Dekerness, Rahmaniya and Al-Saff in the outgoing People's Assembly were stripped of their parliamentary immunity two months ago and questioned by prosecution officials in connection with alleged financial malpractices.

The Dekerness deputy, Tawfik Abdou Ismail, who headed the Assembly's budget and planning committee was said to have used his position as chairman of the Commercial Bank of Daqahliya to grant as much as LE400 million in loans to the Rahmaniya deputy, Khaled Mahmoud, and the Al-Saff deputy, Mahmoud Azzam.

According to a Central Bank report, the loans were contracted without adequate collateral and at the expense of the bank's cash liquidity. By refusing to contest their seats, the NDP has given these people a greater chance of success if they decide to run as independents.

In Gamaliya, the NDP has not fielded a candidate due to the recent death of Saber Eissa, its old-time member for this constituency. And in Abu Kebir, the NDP is alleged to have dropped Helmi Nammar, chairman of the Syndicate of Commerce Graduates, when Mohamed El-Alfi, cousin to Interior Minister Hassan El-Alfi, decided to run for the same seat.

El-Shazli said the NDP was nominating nine cabinet ministers, including six who were members of the outgoing Assembly. The veterans are: Youssef Wali, minister of agriculture and the NDP's secretary-general, who is running in Ibshway (Fayoum); Amal Osman, minister of social affairs, in Dokki (Giza); Maher Abaza, minister of power, in Tilien (Sharqiya); Suleiman Metwalli, minister of transport and communications in Qweissna (Menoufiya); Mohamed Ali Mahgoub, minister of Al-Awqaf (religious endowments) in Al-Tibbin (Helwan); and Kamal El-Shazli, minister of state for parliamentary affairs, in Bagour (Menoufiya).

The cabinet members who were not part of the outgoing Assembly were named as: Ahmed Gweili, minister of supply, in Giza; Mahmoud El-Sherif, minister of local administration, in Mansoura (Daqahliya); and Mohamed El-Ghamrawi, minister of state for military production, in Helwan.

The NDP's list of candidates also includes seven women, compared to four in the 1990 elections. they are: Amal Osman in Giza, Fayda Kamel in Khalifa (Cairo), Soraya Labna in Nasr City (Cairo), Sawsan Kilani in Ismailia, Widad Shalabi in Attarin (Alexandria) and Fardos El-Awdan in Kafr Al-Sheikh.

As in 1990, the NDP's list of candidates does not include a single Copt - a situation which is likely to be exploited by the opposition parties, particularly the Wafd.

El-Shazli said that "new faces" make up 35 per cent of this year's list, compared to 50 per cent in 1990. Two hundred and ninety members of the outgoing Assembly are listed as well, but 114 NDP figures, including 87 members of the outgoing Assembly, had their applications turned down by the party. Angry, around 90 of them have announced that they will run as independents, regardless of the NDP's threat to expel them from the party.

They include Ahmed El-Hefni, a former chairman of the Supreme Constitutional court, who strongly opposed a number of laws in the last Assembly, who will run in Daqahliya. Wagiha El-Zalabani, who had retained her seat in the outgoing Assembly despite a ruling by the Court of Cassation that her election was rigged, will be running in Damanhour.

An analytical study by Ahmed Kamal El-Qadi, a researcher of the People's Assembly, showed that in 1990 only 260 NDP candidates out of a total of 444, a percentage of 58.5, managed to win seats in the house. But the NDP majority jumped to 80 per cent after 95 NDP members who failed to win the party's nomination ran as independents, and won, later rejoining party ranks. The NDP had allowed them back into the party despite earlier threats to drop their membership.

The same threat was made by El-Shazli last Thursday. "Those who run for election as independents against other NDP candidates should know that they will be expelled from the party," he said. However, El-Qadi's study anticipated that the same scenario would be repeated in this year's elections.

As the NDP and other parties announced the names of their candidates, there were signs that the election battle was heating up.

In the town of Toukh in the governorate of Qalyubiya, a confrontation between the supporters of NDP candidate Adel Sidki, brother of Prime Minister Atef Sidki, and Attiya El-Fayoumi, an NDP member running independently, exploded into a fight that left one person dead and three others seriously injured.

In the Cairo constituency of Dokki, NDP candidate Amal Osman, minister of social affairs, is bracing for an uphill struggle against Maamoun El-Hodeibi, a prominent figure in the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

In Nasr City, NDP candidate Abdel-Moneim Emara, chairman of the Higher Council for Youth and Sports, is facing strong opposition from Adel Hussein, secretary-general of the Islamist-oriented Labour Party. The rivalry has triggered an anti-Emara campaign in the opposition press, with Al-Shaab, Labour's mouthpiece accusing him of corruption, and Al-Wafd alleging that he had illegally registered 14,000 of his supporters as voters in the constituency.

And in Helwan, Mohamed Ali Mahgoub, minister of Al-Awqaf (religious endowments), is challenged by Mustafa Bakri, editor-in-chief of Al-Ahrar, the Liberal Party's newspaper.

But the outcome of the battle in two other Cairo constituencies appears to have already been decided in the NDP. Ahmed Fathi Sorour, speaker of the outgoing Assembly, appears confident that he will carry Al-Sayeda Zeinab while Zakaria Azmi, chief of the presidential staff, faces little opposition in Zeitoun.

Political analyst Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, asked for his assessment of the NDP list, commented "We cannot say that the NDP has a platform in the technical sense of the word because the main role of NDP candidates is to absorb any adverse effects of government policies. This is why I cannot say that the NDP list has any particular significance, apart from the fact that the candidates were chosen on the basis of their popularity and ability to play the required role of absorbing these adverse effects."

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