US embassy cable - 05CAIRO8501

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 008501 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC STAFF FOR POUNDS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/07/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, KDEM, EG, KPAL, Parliamentary Elections 
SUBJECT: PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS PREVIEW # 4 
 
REF: A. CAIRO 8392 
     B. CAIRO 8274 
     C. 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. (SBU)  On the final day of campaigning before Egypt's 
three-stage parliamentary elections kick off on November 9, 
the stage is set for numerous bitterly contested races.  A 
number of members of the cabinet and other key GOE and 
opposition figures have their seats on the line in this first 
round.  The ruling NDP should easily retain control of the 
People's Assembly, but the size and character of the next 
parliament's opposition remains the key issue at stake.  The 
illegal but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood, which is fielding 
150 nominally independent candidates, is attracting more 
attention than Egypt's fractured opposition parties, in spite 
of a coalition which includes many of them in a "National 
Front."  Meanwhile, Egypt's domestic election monitors won a 
significant court victory on November 6, affirming their 
right to access polling stations.  On the international 
front, seven members of the European Parliament will visit 
Egypt on a fact-finding mission that will coincide with the 
first round, and six "long-term observers" deployed by the 
National Democratic Institute have set up shop and will 
remain until after the process concludes in the first week of 
December.  IRI will send assessors for the second round of 
the elections, set for November 20.  End summary. 
 
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Key Candidates Poised at the Starting Line 
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2. (C) The official 20-day campaign for the first round of 
parliamentary elections, which will be staged November 9 in 
the provinces of Cairo, Giza, Manofiya, Beni Suef, Minya, New 
Valley, and Marsa Matrouh, ends on the evening of November 7. 
Since Egyptian law dictates that a candidate must obtain a 
clear 51 percent majority to win, many of the races are 
expected to go to runoffs, which will take place, for the 
first round, on November 15.  Among the key GOE figures whose 
seats are on the line November 9 are: 
 
-- Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros Ghali (YBG):  He is 
pitted against the veteran opposition figure (and fellow 
Copt) Mona Makram Ebeid, in the northern Cairo constituency 
al-Ma'had Al-Fanni.  YBG is heavily favored to win. 
 
-- Minister of Housing Ibrahim Soliman: Reputedly one of the 
most corrupt members of the GOE, Soliman is running in the 
impoverished district of Gamaliyya.  He is expected to easily 
defeat his opponents, an NDP member running as an independent 
and an obscure Nasserist. 
 
-- Minister of Military Production Sayyed Mishaal: Another 
cabinet member with a reputation for particularly excessive 
corruption, Mishaal's race in Helwan, just south of Cario, 
received an important boost when his most serious opponent, 
Hossam Hassanein, a popular former soccer star, withdrew from 
the competition on November 6.  Interestingly, Mishaal's 
campaign manager broke the news of Hassanein's withdrawal. 
 
-- Minister of People's Assembly Affairs Kamal El-Shazly: 
Veteran machine politician Shazly, who is listed in the 
Guinness Book of World Records as the longest serving member 
of parliament, is embroiled in an unusually tight competition 
in his constituency of Bagour, in Manofiya, against a wealthy 
Wafd candidate, Mohammed Kamal Mostafa.  Shazly, who recently 
told us an average of 500 constituents per night dined at his 
table during Ramadan, is still the favorite. 
 
-- Presidential Chief of Staff Zakaria Azmy:  One of the most 
powerful men in Egypt by virtue of his proximity to President 
Mubarak, Azmy faces no serious competition in his Cairo 
constituency of Zeitoun. 
 
-- People's Assembly Speaker Fathy Surour:  Running in the 
venerable Cairo district of Sayyeda Zainab, Surour told us he 
was delighted with a November 6 decision to strike 16000 
names from the constituency's voter rolls.  The names were 
reportedly mainly duplicates or names of deceased citizens. 
Surour is being challenged by former Ayman Nour ally Mursi 
Al-Shaykh and by Amin Mansour, a second cousin of Kamal 
Shazly.  There has been some speculation in the Egyptian 
media that Shazly was seeking via his relative to unseat 
Surour, perhaps clearing the way for his own assumption of 
the speakership.  However, in a November 7 conversation with 
the Ambassador, Surour was more agitated by Al-Shaykh's 
campaign, which he alleged was mass producing fraudent voter 
identification cards.  Surour volunteered to the Ambassador 
that he was seeking Al-Shaykh's arrest. 
 
3. (SBU) Other important races at stake on November 9 involve 
key members of Gamal Mubarak's NDP "reform camp:" 
 
-- Steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz, who ran President Mubarak's 
reelection campaign, is being challenged for his seat in 
Manofiya by another ally of Gamal's, the wealthy businessman 
Ibrahim Kamal.  Though a prominent NDP member, Kamal is 
running as an independent. 
 
-- Hossam Badrawi, a long-term Gamal ally who recently lashed 
out at the NDP for favoring old-school veterans over younger 
reformers in its nominations, is being challenged for his 
seat in the downtown Cairo district of Qasr Al-Nil by 
(independent) Muslim Brotherhood affiliate Gamal Abdel Salam. 
 
 
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Nour's Seat Bitterly Contested 
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4. (C) One of the most interesting races on November 9 is in 
the lower middle class Cairo constituency of Bab 
al-Shariya/Moski: 
 
-- Ayman Nour, the embattled leader of the opposition Ghad 
Party, is fighting for his political life in a race against 
the (ostensibly retired) State Security officer Yahya 
Wahdani. 
 
-- Nour and his supporters have repeatedly claimed that the 
GOE, through the State Security Service, is employing heavy 
handed tactics to ensure Nour's defeat, including repeated 
summons of community leaders, and other residents suspected 
of supporting Nour, to police stations to be warned of 
"consequences" and unspecified retaliation if Wahdani loses. 
 
-- Nour's wife and political adviser Gameela Ismail told 
poloff on November 6 that she was confident neighborhood 
constituents would remain steadfast in their support in spite 
of alleged acts of intimidation, but worried that Wahdani, 
with GOE cooperation, would be able to doctor the results. 
 
-- Ismail said she had been consulting with domestic 
monitoring groups to encourage maximum attention to the 
counting and tabulation process in the district. 
 
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MB - The Force to Watch 
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5. (SBU) As discussed reftel, one of the most important 
stories of this parliamentary elections season has been the 
aggressive full-court press made by nominally independent 
candidates affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). 
Deputy Supreme Guide Mahmoud Habib readily admitted in an 
interview published November 3 that the group has never had 
as much space to operate and campaign as it has in the fall 
of 2005.   The MB's "Islam is the Solution" slogan is 
ubiquitous in banners strung all across Cairo and other 
districts, prompting bitter attacks in the press and on TV by 
veteran MB critics like Rif'at Said, leader of the leftist 
Tagammu' Party.  Said blamed the MB's use of this slogan, and 
its advocacy of imposing Shari'a law, for creating the 
environment in which Islamist terrorism plagued Egypt during 
the 1990s. 
 
6. (C) Elsewhere in the Egyptian political scene, attitudes 
toward the MB appear to be evolving.  The Egyptian press took 
note of veteran NDP figure Kamal El-Shazly's comment at an 
October 30 news conference that the MB was "a political force 
that cannot be ignored."  GOE rhetoric toward the MB has more 
typically insinuated that the group aimed to present a 
legitimate facade to mask an extremist, or even terrorist, 
agenda.  However, in a November 7 meeting with the 
Ambassador, People's Assembly Speaker Fathy Surour asserted 
that he went out of his way to treat the 15 members of the 
outgoing parliament affiliated with the MB with equanimity 
and respect, asserting that this approach yielded more 
positive results than ostracism and open hostility.  Surour 
predicted the MB would double its current representation in 
the next parliament, with approximately 35 seats. 
 
7. (SBU) In his November 3 interview, Deputy Supreme Guide 
Habib evinced confidence both in the MB's near-term political 
prospects and in its fundamental strengths as an 
organization.  Habib predicted the MB, which is fielding 150 
candidates for the 444 elected seats of the People's 
Assembly, would win at least 50 of them.  Contrasting his 
group with the ruling NDP, Habib asserted that the MB was 
enriched with volunteers who believe in their cause.  While 
the NDP has to pay people for every service they provide, MB 
supporters willingly donated their time and resources for the 
sake of their group.  In a related story circulated on 
November 7, Sheikh Abdallah Al-Khatib, a member of the MB's 
Guidance Bureau, issued a fatwa forbidding the buying and 
selling of votes. 
 
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A Step Forward for Domestic Monitors 
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8. (SBU) In a victory for domestic observers, a Cairo 
administrative court ruled on November 7 that independent 
civil society organizations can monitor the parliamentary 
elections and have access to polling stations and need not 
coordinate in advance with the government-appointed National 
Council for Human Rights, which has been engaged is its own 
efforts to train and deploy election monitors.  Although the 
Chairman of the Parliamentary Elections Commission, Justice 
Minister Aboul Leil, had already acknowledged in principle 
the right of civil society groups to monitor the elections 
(ref C) the exact modalities of this monitoring have remained 
uncertain. 
 
9. (SBU) The court ruling was prompted by a lawsuit filed by 
a coalition of Egyptian NGOs who suspected that the GOE, 
through the electoral commission, would use the credentialing 
process to restrict the access of independent domestic 
monitors.  Although the court ruling adds weight and momentum 
to the activities of domestic monitors, we anticipate that 
access and freedom of activity for domestic monitors will 
remain contentious and will be interpreted differently at 
different locales. 
 
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International "Observers" 
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10. (SBU) Meanwhile, we learned on November 7 that seven 
members of the European Parliament will arrive in Cairo for a 
November 8-11 "fact-finding mission" in connection with the 
first round of the parliamentary elections.   In a separate 
development, NDI's six "long term observers" (LTOs) have also 
arrived in Cairo and are preparing for their month-long 
assessment of the Egyptian parlimentary election process. 
The NDI LTOs plan to coordinate closely with the domestic 
observers.  IRI will also be sending an assessment team that 
will focus on the second round of elections, set to begin on 
November 20. 
 
 
RICCIARDONE