US embassy cable - 05CAIRO7414

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 007414 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/20/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, EAID, EG, Elections 
SUBJECT: GAMAL MUBARAK AIDE ON ELECTIONS, U.S. ASSISTANCE 
 
 
Classified by Acting DCM Peter Kaestner for reasons 1.4 (b) 
and (d). 
 
1.  (C) Summary.  A close aide to Gamal Mubarak thinks that 
barriers to international observers for Egypt's upcoming 
parliamentary elections are too high to overcome.  He does 
not believe that any party other than the ruling NDP will win 
the number of seats required to field a candidate in the 2011 
presidential election.  He suggested that Ayman Nour's El 
Ghad Party (and Nour himself) would perform poorly in the 
upcoming election.  The aide also complained about Hill 
efforts to condition assistance on Radio Sawa cooperation. 
ECPD Counselor made clear that the Administration would 
continue to press for international observers for the 
parliamentary election.  End summary. 
 
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Observers for Parliamentary Elections 
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2.  (C) ECPO Counselor had coffee September 15 with Karim 
Haggag, an Egyptian diplomat currently working for 
presidential son and NDP leader Gamal Mubarak.  Most of the 
conversation was on Egypt's upcoming parliamentary elections. 
 While acknowledging that there will likely be much in the 
campaign and voting that the GOE would prefer the outside 
world not see, ECPO Counselor stressed that a genuine 
monitoring program, sizable and accredited, would be 
essential to the credibility of the parliamentary poll. 
 
3.  (C) Haggag acknowledged that the ugliness (i.e., 
violence, blatant vote-rigging) of past parliamentary 
elections was one factor that made the GOE hesitant to permit 
observers.  Haggag argued that there were "legal" and 
"institutional" barriers as well.  The legal barrier he 
explained by comparing Egypt's presidential and parliamentary 
election laws.  Unlike the law governing presidential 
elections, Haggag said, the law covering parliamentary 
elections does not give the electoral commission any leeway 
regarding who may be admitted to polling stations.  Instead, 
the law explicitly lays out who may be admitted and this does 
not include outside monitors. 
 
4.  (C) Regarding the "institutional" barrier, Haggag said 
that the presidential election had highlighted the deep rift 
between Egypt's judiciary and the other branches of 
government.  Haggag described a judiciary determined to 
demonstrate its independence from the executive and resist 
any suggestions as to how it should do its job monitoring 
elections.  Letting in outsiders, with the implication that 
the judges weren't up to the job, was particularly offensive. 
 ECPO Counselor responded that we were convinced that if the 
GOE leadership recognized the need to invite observers, it 
would be able to overcome any legal and institutional hurdles. 
 
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Snubbing the Europeans 
---------------------- 
 
5.  (C) Haggag cited a recent visit by European officials as 
illustrative of the sensitivity of the GOE regarding 
elections issues.  A delegation from the European Commission 
recently visited Cairo to assess the recent presidential 
elections and explore the possibility of mounting an observer 
operation for the upcoming parliamentary ballot.  Haggag said 
that the EU had ruffled feathers by sending in the delegation 
before receiving MFA approval.  He acknowledged that the 
local EC Delegation had informed the MFA of the planned visit 
and the MFA had failed to respond (MFA standard operating 
procedure when it wants to say "no" without actually saying 
it).  Choosing to take silence as assent, the EU brought its 
team anyway so, with typical pique, the GOE cancelled all the 
visitors' official appointments. 
 
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Predicting the Parliamentary Election Outcome 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
7.  (C) Haggag said he thought it was very unlikely that any 
party other than the NDP would in the upcoming elections gain 
the 5% of parliamentary seats required to field a candidate 
in the 2011 presidential elections.  He said that "some 
people" had suggested manipulating the vote so that at least 
one opposition party cleared the threshhold, but that such 
maneuvers would cause problems within the NDP. Any seat for 
an opposition party means one less seat for the NDP, he 
explained, and finding NDP members willing to sacrifice their 
seats - and the perks and patronage that go with them - was 
impossible. 
 
8.  (C) Haggag argued that this was not the result the GOE 
was looking for, and pointed to language Mubarak used in 
campaign speeches calling for a parliament that represented 
the views of all Egyptians.  He said that the GOE's response 
to the lack of significant opposition party representation in 
a virtually all-NDP legislature would be to move swiftly 
after the parliamentary election to amend the constitution. 
Under the new constitution, the next parliamentary elections 
would take place with a proportional representation rather 
than single-member constituency system.  Haggag said that 
Egypt had such a system in the 1980s and it resulted in much 
more significant opposition representation in parliament. 
 
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Goodbye to Ayman Nour? 
---------------------- 
 
9.  (C) Unprompted, Haggag cautioned ECPO Counselor against 
assuming that El Ghad Party leader Ayman Nour's surprisingly 
strong second-place showing would translate into success for 
El Ghad during the parliamentary vote or even that Nour would 
be able to keep his own parliamentary seat.  While 
acknowledging that the fractious and desperately underfunded 
party would find it hard to win a significant number of 
seats, ECPO Counselor suggested that Nour's popularity among 
his constituents virtually assured his reelection in a fair 
ballot. 
 
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Radio Sawa 
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10.  (C) Haggag complained vehemently and at length about 
appropriations language linking disbursement of U.S. 
assistance to GOE cooperation on Radio Sawa.  He argued that 
the U.S. was pushing for greater conditionality on the 
assistance program and then, when the two sides agree on 
conditions (as with the financial sector MOU), Congress adds 
new unilateral conditions and the admininstration does 
nothing about it.  Haggag was uncharacteristically agitated 
on this point and said that he had tried (and failed) to 
insert language in the President's stump speech thanking the 
USG for its decades of development aid and calling for the 
assistance relationship to be restructed "in the spirit of 
partnership" (code for "no conditionality"). 
 
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Comment 
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11.  (C) Haggag is close to Gamal and his comments accurately 
reflect Gamal's perspective.  We do not know that, in 
outlining how the GOE might replace its constituency-based 
parliamentary ballot with a proportional representation 
system, he was consciously floating a trial balloon.  We 
would not be surprised, however, if the GOE made such an 
announcement to defuse any outcry, domestic or international, 
over a lopsided parliamentary election.  End comment. 
 
 
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JONES