US embassy cable - 05CAIRO8112

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 008112 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC STAFF FOR POUNDS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/20/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, KDEM, EG, Parliamentary Elections 
SUBJECT: EGYPT: PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS PREVIEW # 1 
 
REF: CAIRO 7793 
 
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) Four weeks before the first round of parliamentary 
elections, we have achieved several modest successes and a 
setback in the effort to help Egypt realize a more 
transparent electoral process.  Meanwhile, the ruling NDP has 
released its slate of parliamentary candidates: The list 
drops 35 percent of its incumbent MPs, including one cabinet 
member, in favor of new candidates.  The emerging consensus, 
however, is that the NDP's slate is mainly "old wine in new 
bottles."  Reprising past practices, many NDP members who 
failed to get the party nomination say they will run as 
independents.  The NDP is gambling that independents will not 
do as well as they did in 2000 -- when only 38 percent of 
official party nominees won. (Most were eventually absorbed 
back into NDP ranks anyway.)  Neither the ruling NDP nor the 
opposition appears to have made the inclusion of women and 
minorities a priority this year.  Of 444 candidates the NDP 
will field, only six are women and two are Coptic Christians. 
 Finally, the Parliamentary Elections Commission appears so 
far to be exceeding the low standard set by the commission 
which oversaw the presidential race.  End summary. 
 
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Engagement for Transparency 
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2. (C) November 9 will see the first of three rounds of 
Egypt's parliamentary elections (reftel).  Our efforts to 
press the GOE toward practices that will enhance the 
transparency of the process have met with some significant 
successes, and a setback, to date. 
 
On the positive side we have: 
 
-- Persuaded the GOE that police stations are not suitable 
venues for polling places; 
 
-- Secured collaboration between IFES and the GOE's State 
Information Service, in a large-scale voter information 
campaign aimed at minimizing the confusion which marked the 
Sept. 7 presidential polls; 
 
-- Convinced the GOE to take a more forward leaning and 
affirmative position toward domestic election monitors; 
 
--  Worked closely with NDI, whose new country director 
arrived in Egypt last week, which is busy training domestic 
monitors across Egypt; 
 
and 
 
-- Secured high level oral assurances that a substantial 
international assessment team organized by NDI will be 
allowed to operate in Egypt, and received by both NDP/GOE 
officials and the opposition, for the duration of the 
parliamentary elections process. 
 
On the other hand: 
 
-- While we succeded in putting the issue of transparent 
(clear plastic) ballot boxes high on the GOE's agenda (and 
saw it subsequently reported and debated in the Egyptian 
media) - it appears that an affirmative decision will not 
come in time for such boxes to be used this year. 
 
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Inside the NDP: A Murky Picture 
------------------------------- 
 
3. (C) As Egypt approaches parliamentary elections on 
November 9, the lion's share of public attention has been 
focused on developments and maneuvers within the ruling 
National Democratic Party (NDP).  Following a relatively 
low-key annual conference in late September, the party 
announced in mid-October that it had settled on its slate of 
candidates to compete for seats in the new People's Assembly. 
  The final list discarded 35 percent of the party's 
incumbent MPs, including cabinet minister (for higher 
education) Abdel Rahim Shehata.  Two other cabinet members, 
Education Minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin Moussa and Investment 
Minister Mahmoud Mohieldin (a protege of Gamal Mubarak) 
failed to secure the NDP's support for their bids to seek 
parliamentary seats.  (The official explanation for 
Mohieldin's withdrawal from the race is that it was due to 
pressure from his own family - he was to compete against his 
uncle, the leftist Tagammu' Party leader Khalid Mohieldin.) 
 
4. (C) Comment: We read Minister Shehata's failure to get his 
party's nod to run again for his seat in parliament as a vote 
of no confidence in him from the political leadership and 
would bet against his survival in the next cabinet shuffle, 
expected sometime after the parliamentary elections.  Shehata 
is rumored to have been implicated in a nascent corruption 
scandal within his ministry.  The significance of Education 
Minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin's failure to get NDP support for a 
run at a parliament seat is less clear cut - he is generally 
viewed as a reform-minded technocrat in synch with the 
message of the "new NDP."  On the other hand, Gamal Mubarak 
ally Hossam Badrawy has long sought a seat in the cabinet 
and, as chairman of the People's Assembly's Education 
Committee, would be a natural choice to succeed Gamal Eddin. 
We doubt that Investment Minister Mohieldin's aborted 
campaign will cause any damage to his career, given the high 
marks he continues to receive, at home and abroad, for his 
role in promoting structural economic reforms.  End comment. 
 
5. (C) Gamal Mubarak asserted to us earlier this fall that 
the party's candidate selection would yield progressive, 
electable candidates.  Instead, the results of the party's 
opaque selection process, referred to in NDP parlance as an 
"electoral college" (apparently a combination of internal 
straw-polling and back-room deals) seemed to demonstrate the 
continuing influence of "old guard" machine politicians like 
Kamal El-Shazly and Safwat El-Sherif, the party's Deputy 
Secretary-General and Secretary-General, respectively.  The 
 
SIPDIS 
bases for selection, the NDP officials insist to us, were 
electability and adherence to the party's vision for a new, 
modernist Egypt. 
 
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Old Wine, New Bottles? 
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6. (C) Despite the party's "New Thinking" fanfare, the 
emerging consensus among those analyzing the NDP's new fall 
line up is that the group is merely "old wine in new 
bottles," in the words of a senior judicial contact.   Even 
the pro-government Al-Ahram Weekly declared the "Party's Old 
Guard Prevails" in reporting the new slate.  Observers have 
been quick to point out that the party's veteran old guard 
stalwarts Kamal El-Shazly, Zakaria Azmy, and even the 
disgraced former Agriculture Minister Youssef Wally have all 
gotten the nod as NDP parliamentary candidates. 
 
7. (C) While the nominations of neither Shazly nor Azmy are 
surprising, given their continuing proximity to Mubarak and 
their long and deep history with him, Wally's nomination is 
arguably more puzzling - in the context of continuing 
controversy over scandals which occured on his watch, 
including the importation of dangerous pesticides blamed for 
the tainted watermelons which reportedly hospitalized scores 
of Egyptians this summer.  A number of commentators in the 
Egyptian press have been quick to point out that many among 
the NDP's new candidates are in fact veterans of old school 
politics and were members of the 1995-2000 parliament. 
 
8. (C) Comment: We believe the old guard - new guard 
dichotomy in discussing intra-NDP dynamics is becoming less 
relevant.  Gamal Mubarak's grip on the ruling party appears 
stronger than it ever has been.  Old guard figures like 
Shazly and Safwat, rather than suffering the  humiliating 
displacement some predicted, have retained their positions 
and increasingly seemed "on message" and in step with Gamal 
in their public actions and statements.  To the extent that 
they represented competing factions in the past (a subject of 
vigorous debate among Egypt watchers), they have clearly put 
aside their differences in the interest of expediency, at 
least until the parliamentary elections are settled.  End 
comment. 
 
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Independents: The X Factor 
-------------------------- 
 
9. (C) Almost all of the NDP incumbents displaced by this 
year's process, and many others, have vowed to run for seats 
as independents this year.  Clearly, the NDP's nightmare 
scenario is a repeat of the 2000 elections, in which NDP 
nominees took only 38 percent of the seats they were 
competing for.  The ruling party only retained its crushing 
majority in parliament after it wooed the victorious MPs back 
into the tent after the elections.  This year, senior NDP 
official (and Mubarak's chief of staff) Zakaria Azmy, has 
announced that "NDP renegades" - party members who run for 
office against official nominees - will not be welcome to 
return to the party, even if they prevail.  We suspect this 
position could become more malleable should the NDP's 
nominees perform worse across the board than the party 
leadership hopes. 
 
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Diversity 2005: A Non-Issue 
--------------------------- 
 
10. (C) One troubling early indicator from the slates of 
candidates that have been published so far is the dearth of 
women candidates.  The NDP, for example, has six women 
candidates out of 444.  The united opposition front does only 
slightly better, so far, with seven women on a slate of 222. 
The NDP has gone even lighter on its selection of candidates 
from the Coptic Christian minority, which makes up 7-10 
percent of the population.  Bishop Morcos of Shubra 
al-Khaima, an Embassy contact and senior member of the Coptic 
Orthodox Church, was quoted in the Arabic media as warning 
that the exclusion of Copts was a "bad way to reward the 
church."  (Comment:  Morcos was presumably referring to Pope 
Shenouda's controversial expressions of fealty to Mubarak in 
the run up to the September 7 Presidential Election, which 
some had speculated would be "rewarded" with unspecified 
gestures to the Christian community later on.  End comment.) 
 
 
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Parliamentary Elections Commission 
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11. (C) In contrast to the performance of the Presidential 
Election Commission (PrEC)--widely criticized for its 
imperious style and lack of accountability--the Parliamentary 
Election Commission (PaEC) appears to be off to a better 
start.  The PaEC, which is chaired by Minister of Justice 
Mahmoud Aboul Leil, has signaled that it will allow domestic 
civil society monitors to observe both voting and vote 
counting.  By contrast, the PrEC refused to allow civil 
society monitor access until mid-way through voting day, a 
decision that led to confusion and additional loss of 
credibility.  In addition, the PaEC has publicized its 
communications with manufacturers of transparent ballot 
boxes, and also noted that it is exploring a local 
procurement of boxes from Egyptian suppliers.  However, as 
noted above, all indications are that an affirmative decision 
in time for the GOE to deploy the boxes this year seems more 
and more unlikely. 
 
 
RICCIARDONE