US embassy cable - 05CAIRO8392

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, Parliamentary Elections 
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 
----------------------- 
 
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