US embassy cable - 05CAIRO6654

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 006654 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC STAFF FOR POUNDS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/29/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, KDEM, EG, Elections 
SUBJECT: EGYPT'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, UPDATE #3 
 
REF: A. CAIRO 6539 
 
     B. CAIRO 6448 
 
Classified by ECPO Counselor John Desrocher for reasons 1.4 
(b) and (d). 
 
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Summary 
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1.  (C)  As Egypt's first campaign for the direct election of 
the president heads into its final week, the political 
landscape remains largely unchanged.  There are no 
indications that the NDP's lock on political power is easing. 
 Neither of President Mubarak's two leading challengers is 
making much headway.  The Muslim Brotherhood continues to 
posture and jockey for position.  An emboldened and empowered 
civil society remains critical of the GOE-dominated process. 
End summary. 
 
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NDP Juggernaut Rolls On 
----------------------- 
 
2.  (C)  President Mubarak has continued to dominate the 
campaign.  One notable development has been the low profile 
kept by NDP old guard figures like Safwat Sherif and Kamal Al 
Shazly.  By virtue of their key party leadership roles 
(Secretary General and Deputy SG, respectively), both men 
were seated prominently at Mubarak's campaign launch on 
August 17, but since then have been virtually silent. 
Speculation about the NDP's effort to reinvent itself as a 
moderate agent of change has gathered steam with rumors that 
Trade Minister Rashid has been pegged to replace Ahmed Nazif 
as Prime Minister in the new post-election cabinet. 
 
3.  (C)  Mubarak has so far avoided any missteps that would 
diminish him in the eyes of voters, but at least one odd 
moment occurred in the Upper Egyptian town of Minya when a 
local popular poet asked the president: 
 
--"Do you remember Mohammad, with whom you shook hands when 
you last visited here to inaugurate the new road?" 
--Appearing to improvise, the President said that he did 
remember Mohammad, and asked the poet about his interest in 
Mohammad. 
--The poet replied "A few days ago, scores of security men 
suddenly arrested Mohammad and took him away." 
--The President, trying to make a joke in this now awkward 
situation, offered that perhaps Mohammad had been arrested 
for meeting with the president. 
--The poet wondered if this meant that people who met with 
the President would get in trouble. 
--"Watch out for yourself, man," advised Mubarak. 
 
Several media commentators have used this anecdote as 
evidence of Mubarak's sense of humor, diplomacy, and quick 
thinking. 
 
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Is the Wafd Wallowing? 
---------------------- 
 
4.  (C)  By contrast, Wafd candidate No'man Gom'a has not 
impressed.  The most remarkable aspects of Gom'a's campaign 
are his faux pas.  After seeming to court the MB, he then 
angered them by saying their political aspirations were 
illegitimate.  More recently, unaware that his microphone was 
on, and annoyed by a particularly boisterous supporter, he 
ordered his security detail to "Shut that son of a b---- up 
or I will kick his a--!" 
 
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The Ghad Gamely Marches On 
-------------------------- 
 
5.  (C)  Ayman Nour has so far avoided any such missteps, but 
his ability to reach a broad swath of voters remains limited 
by his relatively meager resources.  The Ghad's foreign 
relations advisor Hisham Kassem (protect) told us that a 
shortage of funds is seriously hampering Nour's ability to 
get his message out. 
 
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MB Still Cagey 
-------------- 
 
6.  (C)  The MB's fortunes continue to attract attention. 
The recent release from detention of Mohammad Ezzat, a senior 
MB figure and relative hardliner who was jailed after the 
MB's spring demonstrations, has prompted a new round of 
speculation of a "deal" between the GOE and the MB.  Ezzat's 
release means that only one senior MB figure, the relative 
pragmatist Essam El-Erian (who had announced from jail that 
he planned to run for president), remains in detention, along 
with several hundred lower ranking members.  Apparently 
seeking to quash this speculation, the MB's Deputy Supreme 
Guide Mohammad Habib gave a lengthy interview to the 
Nasserist paper Al Araby in which he denounced any 
possibility of a deal with the GOE/NDP, but left the door 
open, in the view of some analysts, to an alliance with Ayman 
Nour's Ghad party. 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
The Rest of the Opposition:  the Seven Dwarves 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
7.  (C)  Of the remaining seven legal opposition candidates, 
none have done anything to attract serious attention.  The 
most remarkable candidate, perhaps, is the nonagenarian Ahmed 
Sabahy of the Umma Party who continues to attract ridicule 
for his belief in astrology, his firmly-held view that 
Egyptian males should once again wear the fez, and his 
admission that President Mubarak is the candidate best 
qualified to rule Egypt.  None of the other six candidates 
has thus far managed to outshine Sabahy. 
 
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Election Commission Still Not Winning Friends 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
8.  (SBU)  The on-again, off-again threat of lawsuits by 
Egyptian civil society activists seeking access to the 
polling stations to monitor the September 7 election now 
appears to be back on.  The State Council Administrative 
Court announced on August 28 that it would rule on September 
3 concerning multiple lawsuits filed by civil society groups 
against the Presidential Election Commission (PEC).  In a 
separate development, the PEC announced that it had detected 
no campaign violations by the media. 
 
9.  (C)  In its rare public statements, the PEC has continued 
to stress that "full judicial supervision" of the polling 
stations will ensure the free, fair, and transparent nature 
of the elections.  The Judges' Club, however, has held fast 
not to announce its decision about supervising or boycotting 
the polls until the membership votes in an extraordinary 
meeting scheduled for September 2 in Cairo.  Comment:  The 
judges' decision, however it goes, will be a major 
development in the election process.  End comment. 
 
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Domestic Monitors Undeterred 
---------------------------- 
 
10.  (SBU)  In an interim report on media coverage of the 
first week of the campaign, the Cairo Institute for Human 
Rights Studies (CIHRS), headed by long-time activist and 
Embassy contact Bahey Eddin Hassan, lauded the fact that 
"media performance is improving" compared to coverage of past 
campaign/elections.  CIHRS's survey considered four leading 
state-owned TV stations, two independent channels, and 17 
newspapers (both independent and state-owned). 
Notwithstanding its generally favorably review of the media 
coverage per se, CIHRS argued that the "willful and 
systematic undermining" of politics in Egypt for more than 50 
years, which has gravely weakened any opposition to the 
ruling party, has meant that the significance of the improved 
media environment remains unclear. 
 
11.  (SBU)  CIHRS's report noted that government TV channels, 
which are directly controlled by the Ministry of Information, 
have so far displayed a notable evenhandedness.  CIHRS also 
noted, however, that the ban on direct criticisms by one 
candidate of another, as well as the unwillingness of the NDP 
to agree to debates, as requested by Ayman Nour, had 
diminished the value of the improved atmosphere on the 
airwaves. 
 
12.  (C)  CIHRS found that the government controlled press 
had shown greater bias towards President Mubarak.  The 
independent press, by contrast, especially Al Masry Al Youm 
and Nahdat Masr (both of which have tiny circulations 
compared to the government controlled press), have provided 
"excellent" and "unprecedented" coverage and analysis of the 
campaign.  Comment:  The CIHRS assessment generally tracks 
with post's assessment of the evolving media environment. 
The past 18 months have witnessed some positive developments 
in terms of media freedom, but it remains to be seen if this 
freedom will lead to any political change in the short to 
medium term.  End comment. 
 
13.  (C)  Finally, it appears that the civil society 
coalitions aiming to monitor the elections have now grown to 
at least five, of varying size and effectiveness.  Their 
training and organizing continues, but they are hampered 
because the exact location of polling stations remain to be 
determined.  The PEC has noted that Egypt's 54,000 customary 
polling places will be combined into approximately 9,000, to 
permit judicial supervision of the polls.  This consolidation 
should also benefit the domestic monitors, but only if they 
have the information in a timely fashion to permit them to 
plan their monitoring strategy. 
 
Visit Embassy Cairo's Classified Website: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/cairo 
 
You can also access this site through the 
State Department's Classified SIPRNET website. 
 
JONES