EGYPT: PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS PREVIEW # 3

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 008392

SIPDIS

NSC STAFF FOR POUNDS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/01/2015
TAGS: PGOV KDEM EG
SUBJECT: EGYPT: PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS PREVIEW # 3

REF: A. CAIRO 8274

B. CAIRO 8112

Classified by ECPO Minister Counselor Michael Corbin for
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

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Summary
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1. (C) A key member of the ruling NDP's leadership recently
defended the party's slate of candidates for the People's
Assembly elections, which will be held in three stages,
starting November 9 and concluding December 7. Many have
assailed the NDP for favoring "old school" party veterans
over younger reform-minded members, women, and Christians.
The performance of NDP nominees will be a critical test of
the success of Gamal Mubarak's efforts to reinvent the party.
Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood, which is fielding 150
"independent" candidates, is impressing observers with its
organization and its apparently effective efforts to reach
out to communities and run strong issues-based campaigns. A
quick look at a number of races where the MB is competing
fiercely is illustrative of the flavor of this elections
season. The question of electoral fraud, which has tainted
parliamentary elections in the past, continues to loom, but
most observers believe fraud, to the extent it occurs, will
be more subtle than in previous elections. The Chairman of
the Parliamentary Elections Commission formally announced on
October 31 that the Commission had approved the use of
transparent ballot boxes. End summary.

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NDP Rebuts Criticism of Candidate Slate...
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2. (C) Political Scientist Mohammed Kamal, widely recognized
as the principal spokesman for Gamal Mubarak's reformist
circle within the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP),
defended the party's new slate of parliamentary candidates at
an October 30 evening forum which also featured
representatives of the quasi-liberal Wafd and leftist Tagammu
parties. Poloff attended as an observer. Kamal was
repeatedly challenged by his fellow panelists, and audience
members, who argued that the party's slate, which features
many party veterans and notably few young, female, or
Christian candidates, was inconsistent with the NDP's
professed "new thinking" and commitment to reform. Kamal
insisted that much thought had gone into the new list, and
that the candidates the party settled upon were picked,
primarily, for their ability to win. "Like any other party,
in any democracy, we seek to win as many seats as
possible...this is only natural," Kamal asserted.

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...but Stops Burning Bridges
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3. (C) In many constituencies, the NDP candidates' most
serious challenges will come from fellow party members
running as independents after they failed to secure the
party's nomination. The NDP is gambling that its candidates
will fare much better against independent opponents than it
did in 2000, when only 38 percent of the party's nominees
won. (Most of the victorious independents promptly rejoined
the party, allowing the NDP to preserve its overwhelming
parliamentary majority.) Although senior NDP official (and
President Mubarak's Chief of Staff) Zakaria Azmy was quoted
in mid-October as vowing that independents who ran against
NDP nominees would not be welcome to rejoin the party, the
party appears to be walking back from this hard line. At the
October 30 forum, Mohammed Kamal "clarified" the party's
policy on independents who run against NDP nominees: "They
will all be considered 'children of the party' and welcomed
back," Kamal asserted, "unless they defect to another
political party, at which point they will be considered
ex-NDP members."


4. (C) Comment: The NDP's adjustment of its attitude towards
independent members is of course pragmatic but may also
reflect concerns that the party's new candidates will not
perform as well as they hope. Should independents again
outperform NDP-anointed candidates on the scale they did in
2000, many will conclude that Gamal Mubarak's four year
effort to retool and streamline the party has been a failure.
End comment.

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Muslim Brotherhood Pulling Out All Stops
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5. (C) Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (MB),which is fielding 150
nominally independent parliamentary candidates, is the
opposition force everyone is watching. The MB's leadership
has predicted it will win 90 seats, and even
establishment/anti-MB contacts are predicting that the
brothers will double their current representation from 15 to
30 seats. (Note: There are 444 elected seats in the People's
Assembly. Ten more are appointed by the President. End
note.) In the Cairo area, where the first of three rounds of
elections will be staged on November 9, MB candidates are
contesting half of the 28 seats allocated to the capital
area. MB candidates' black banners, bearing the "Islam is
the solution" slogan, stand along those of other candidates
in virtually every traffic circle and intersection.


6. (C) A western academic contact and long-term resident of
Egypt is convinced the MB will easily outperform any other
opposition grouping in the parliamentary races. He recounted
to poloff the scene at an October 29 MB rally he attended in
Madinat Sayf, an improvished community in Giza province,
about 50 KM south of Cairo. According to the contact, more
than 4000 supporters turned out for the rally - with minimal
supervision from local police. Our contact, accompanied by
several western journalists, was quickly greeted and "spun"
by MB "handlers" who had been designated to court foreign
media.


7. (C) MB campaign materials distributed at the rally had
been tailored for that particular constituency - methodically
listing local economic and environmental problems and
specifying steps the candidate would take to address each of
them. This pattern, our contact noted, was being repeated by
MB candidates in constituencies across the country. "The MB
will do well because they are out on the streets, courting
the people, especially in marginalized areas," he opined.


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Constituencies to Watch
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8. (C) Among the interesting races involving MB candidates
that we are watching are:

-- Kerdasa, a neighborhood in Giza, not far from the
pyramids. MB candidate Abdel Salam Bashandy has been
endorsed by community leader Youssef El Mandouh, a former NDP
official. His opponent, NDP member Khalid Tamer, is a
political novice.

-- Agouza, an urban district on the west bank of the Nile,
near the elite Cairo neighborhood of Zamalek. MB candidate
Hazem Abu Ismail is running against NDP candidate Amal Osman
(one of 6 women nominated by the ruling party this year).
Hazem is the son of an MB member who served in parliament in
the 1980s. Contacts in the neighborhood give Osman (who is
also Deputy PA speaker) a leg up in the race -- given her
"generosity" to the voters, particularly as election day
approaches.

-- Al Arish, North Sinai, where authorities appear nervous
about the campaign of MB candidate Abdel Rahman Shorbuggy.
Shorbuggy appears to be riding a wave of local anti-GOE
sentiment prompted by the mass arrests in Al-Arish in late
2004 in reaction to October 2004 terrorist attacks.
Authorities broke up a late October campaign rally staged by
Shorbuggy in Al-Arish, and tore down banners and placards
bearing his name. Shorbuggy himself told the press he was
surprised by the size of his rally - more than 2000 locals
showed up - a huge gathering in this normally sleepy seaside
city.

-- Port Said, where MB candidate Akram al-Shaer is the
incumbent. Shaer reportedly enjoys considerable popularity
in the community while his opponent, NDP nominee (and
municipality chief) Mahmoud Meniawy, has been described as
"unknown" to local voters.

-- Mallawi, in Minya province, 200 KM south of Cairo, where
supporters of MB candidate Bahaa Eldin Attia have had several
street fights/clashes with NDP incumbent Omar el-Kashef. In
recent clashes, Attia's thugs have greatly outnumbered
Kashef's and observers believe the incumbent is now on the
defensive.

-- Damanhour, a Nile Delta city 50 KM southeast of
Alexandria, where NDP candidate Mustafa Fiqqi, the chairman
of the PA's foreign affairs committee is running for a seat
for the first time. Fiqqi was one of the 10 MPs appointed to
their seats by Mubarak in 2000 - this is the first time he is
seeking election. Fiqqi's opponent is former MB member of
parliament Gamal Heshmat, who was removed from his seat in
2003 as the result of a court decision based on a legal
technicality. Many believe Fiqqi, well known in Cairo as a
prominent member of the NDP's reform circle, will be hard
pressed to defeat Heshmat's substantial local support base.

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To Fix or Not to Fix
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9. (C) In recent conversations, a number of our contacts have
made the point to us that the GOE is unlikely to pursue
"traditional" forms of electoral fraud, such as ballot-box
stuffing and substitution. Other tried and true tactics such
as police blockage of access to polling stations, and
deployment of thugs, may be less evident in the November
elections, we often hear. Significantly, on October 31,
Minister of Justice Mahmoud Aboul Leil, Chairman of the
Parliamentary Elections Commission formally announced that
the GOE would use transparent ballot boxes (which reportedly
have three glass and three wooden sides) for the coming
elections. This decision had been previewed last week by the
Minister of Interior (ref A).


10. (C) Many observers believe the GOE nonetheless intends to
fix races in strategic constituencies, particularly those
where the MB is running strong, most likely by ensuring that
a "trusted" or "reliable" judge is assigned to supervision
duty in the district in question. In these cases, the
"trusted" judges will simply sign off on doctored results,
according to the scenario. A senior judicial contact of the
Embassy added credence to this theory when he told poloff, on
the margins of a mid-October event at the Ambassador's
residence, that a "reliable" Ministry of Justice official had
been placed by Egyptian State Security in a key position,
which determines assignments of judges to particular
constituencies, and that State Security was dictating through
this person which judges should go where.


RICCIARDONE