Global Issues
Egypt Practises for Bigger Rigging
Egypt's recently concluded Shura Council elections were accompanied by widespread reports of serious electoral breaches by the ruling party. According to analysts and opposition figures, such voting 'irregularities' bode poorly for upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.
'The Shura races were riddled with electoral fraud, both at the ballot box and during the vote counting phase,' Amr Hashem Rabie, expert in parliamentary affairs at the semi-official Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told IPS. 'This is a bad omen in terms of the coming elections for the People's Assembly and the presidency.'
Held in the first week of June, elections for the Shura Council -- the upper, consultative house of Egypt's parliament -- were swept by President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).
Of the 88 seats contested, the NDP captured 80, with 14 ruling party candidates running unopposed. Despite having fielded 39 of the 446 candidates that ran, small opposition parties -- namely the Tagammu, Nasserist, Al-Geel, Al-Ghad and Al-Wafd parties -- captured only five seats. Three seats went to independent candidates.
Nevertheless, despite their relatively poor showing, it was the first time for as many as five opposition parties to win seats on the council since its creation in 1980 by former president Anwar Sadat.
The Muslim Brotherhood opposition movement failed to win a single seat, despite having fielded 15 candidates. The Brotherhood currently holds 86 seats in the 454-seat People's Assembly -- roughly one fifth -- making it Egypt's largest opposition force by far.
While the government announced a turnout of 30 percent of citizens eligible to vote, Rabie put turnout at between 10 and 15 percent.
The NDP further bolstered its grip on the council with Mubarak appointing another 45 council members, mostly ruling party loyalists. According to the constitution, one-third of the council's members are appointed by presidential decree. The finally tally gave the NDP 250 of the council's 264 seats.
'In the absence of any judicial oversight whatsoever, the entire electoral process was riddled with fraud,' Brotherhood spokesman Essam al-Arian told IPS.
'The supporters of certain candidates were barred from voting stations, while civil society representatives were kept from observing the balloting,' said Rabie. 'Also, electoral officials were bribed, while vote counting was performed by government employees instead of impartial judges.'
According to one such public employee, the voting centre he had been charged with manning was shut by police five hours before the official deadline for vote casting. 'Then they came in and stuffed the ballot box,' he told IPS on condition of anonymity. Security officials denied they had manipulated the balloting.
According to Rabie, the election results speak for themselves. 'How could the Muslim Brotherhood, which won 88 seats in 2005 parliamentary elections, fail to win a single seat in the Shura races?'
Rabie said even the five seats captured by opposition candidates had been a result of vote rigging. 'If a handful of seats go to small opposition parties, the regime can maintain the fiction that Egypt has a competitive, multi-party political system.'
'The Nasserist candidate that won in Cairo, for example, received 35,000 votes, even though the entire Nasserist Party only has about 5,000 members,' Rabie said. 'The candidate himself was surprised he won.'
Most independent analysts and opposition figures see the Shura elections as an indication of what they can expect in upcoming People's Assembly elections, scheduled for October, and presidential elections slated for late next year.
According to Rabie, the ruling party's primary objective in any election is to 'thwart the Muslim Brotherhood,' which remains the only genuine political threat to the ruling regime. Although the Brotherhood is officially banned by the state, it has traditionally fielded electoral candidates as nominal independents.
'Without any vote rigging, the Brotherhood would win a lot more seats in upcoming parliamentary elections than the 88 they captured in 2005,' he said. 'The regime, therefore, plans to fix elections with the aim of distributing the Brotherhood's current seats between the small opposition parties.'
Another reason for rigging some Shura contests in favour of small and ineffectual opposition parties is the upcoming presidential election, said Rabie. 'Article 76 of the constitution stipulates that opposition parties can only field presidential candidates if they are represented in the Shura Council. The five small opposition parties were each given one Shura seat to allow them to do this.
'Egypt will therefore be able to stage-manage a 'multi-candidate' presidential election, with a fall-guy nominee drawn from one of the weak opposition parties,' Rabie added.
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service