US embassy cable - 05CAIRO8822

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 008822 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC STAFF FOR SINGH 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/22/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, KDEM, EG, Elections, Parliamentary Elections 
SUBJECT: AN EPIC PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE IN THE NILE DELTA 
 
REF: A. CAIRO 8786 
     B. CAIRO 8745 
 
Classified by Michael Corbin for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
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Summary 
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1. (C) One of the most closely watched races of the second 
round of People's Assembly elections pitted Gamal Heshmat, a 
popular local Muslim Brotherhood candidate, against Mostafa 
Fiqqi, a prominent member of Gamal Mubarak's circle of 
"reformists" in the ruling NDP, in the gritty Nile Delta city 
of Damanhour.  The city saw an intense campaign period and 
pitched battles on election day between "NDP thugs," the MB 
youth who seemed to outnumber them, and apparently 
spontaneous acts of local violence against buses suspected of 
carrying outsiders in to vote for the NDP.  The highly 
controversial result, which was certified as a lopsided 
victory for Fiqqi, is widely believed to have been falsified. 
 Heshmat is reported to be working to restrain his 
supporters, some of whom are said to be ready to take to the 
streets.  While the Damanhour race, and several others we 
have seen so far, appears to be a clear-cut example of a 
fabricated NDP victory, it does not necessarily fit a wider 
pattern.  The MB have prevailed on many other electoral 
battlefields this month, having already secured 46 seats, 
with more than half of the seats still to be decided in 
runoffs on November 26 and the third stage of elections, 
which begins on December 1.  End summary. 
 
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A Sour History 
-------------- 
 
2. (C) One of the most closely watched races of the second 
stage was held in Damanhour, the seat of Beheira province, 
about 50 miles southeast of Alexandria.  The race for the 
"professional's" seat pitted the very popular MB Gamal 
Heshmat against prominent NDP reform figure Mostafa Fiqqi. 
Heshmat was elected to the People's Assembly in 2000, and 
served until a late 2002 court ruling nullified the 2000 
election results, prompting an unusual by-election in January 
2003.  According to multiple accounts, on the day of the 
by-election, January 8, 2003, the city was virtually locked 
down by 66 Central Security Force squadrons, which allegedly 
refused entry of most Damanhour residents to the polling 
stations, while dozens of buses brought in voters from other 
districts. 
 
3. (C) In the end, according to official results, Heshmat 
lost to Wafd Party member Khairi Kilig by a vote of 16,862 to 
965.  (In the 2000 race, Kilig lost with 3,657 votes to 
Heshmat's 16,862.)  The unusual by-election and its strange 
result raised eyebrows even in establishment circles in 
Cairo, and prompted howls of outrage from Heshmat's 
supporters and the MB organization, but Heshmat himself vowed 
he would stand again in 2005. 
 
4. (C) In the summer of 2005, the NDP's Mostafa Fiqqi, 
Chairman of the People's Assembly's Foreign Affairs 
Committee, announced that he would compete for one of the 
seats in Damanhour.  Fiqqi, a former diplomat and a rising 
star in the NDP's "reformist circles" had served in 
parliament for ten years, but had never been elected -- he 
was one of the ten MP's appointed to the People's Assembly by 
President Mubarak.  Fiqqi told a contact he was determined to 
get an elected seat in 2005 to shore up his credibility in 
the next parliament. 
 
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Lopsided, but for Whom? 
------------------------ 
 
5. (C) A western journalist contact who spent several days 
"embedded" with the Heshmat campaign told us that the MB 
candidate's many supporters in the town were still smarting 
from his unusual 2003 ouster and determined to send him back 
to parliament.  Dueling campaign rallies attended by our 
contact in the final days of the campaign foreshadowed what 
would apparently be a lopsided battle:  More than 6,000 
people rallied in support of Heshmat on November 25.  At the 
event, an MB poet read a satirical verse mocking Fiqqi as an 
out-of-touch carpet bagger pursuing a quixotic mission. 
Fiqqi's own rally on the same day was a comparatively subdued 
affair which attracted only a few hundred supporters.  The 
conventional wisdom in Damanhour, expressed by several 
contacts, was that "Heshmat owns this town," and that "Fiqqi 
is perceived as an outsider.  He can not win."  For his part, 
Fiqqi vowed in public remarks that if there was any fraud in 
the coming election, he would resign. 
 
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A Messy Election Day 
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6. (C) The overwhelming popular support for Heshmat in 
Damanhour was clearly in evidence during poloff's November 20 
visit to the city.  At five polling stations we visited, 
Heshmat's supporters were out in force.  MB supporters at 
several polling stations told us similar stories of "NDP 
thugs armed with swords" who had been "let out of jail" to 
intimidate MB voters.  Several Egyptian and western 
journalists we met in Damanhour confirmed these stories, 
noting that two flashpoints had been the Abdel Moneim Riyadh 
school and the district of Abu Reesh, each in the poorest 
sections of the city. 
 
7. (C) At Abdel Moneim Riyadh school, a journalist eyewitness 
told us, NDP thugs carrying knives, "swords," and sticks 
found themselves outnumbered by MB supporters who routed them 
after a brief street fight.  An Egyptian journalist working 
for a western wire service told poloff on November 21 that 
she had interviewed several of the "NDP thugs," one of whom 
proudly showed her his release papers from jail, dated 
November 20.  The subject was "clearly high on drugs," she 
claimed.  Several journalists we met in Damanhour separately 
insisted that the thugs were prisoners on interim release. 
One showed poloff pictures he had taken of the thugs, posing 
with clubs, and one holding a can of beans marked as Ministry 
of Interior prison rations. 
 
8. (C) Several western journalists were present at a polling 
station in Abu Reesh, Damanhour, where a sunset standoff took 
place when a pro-MB crowd demanding entry to a polling 
station confronted police and poll workers who had closed the 
site down.  Convinced the site had been closed to allow 
officials to manipulate the results against the MB, members 
of the crowd began to shout "they (the police) are occupiers! 
Treat them like the Israelis!" prompting others in the crowd 
to throw stones at police vehicles.  Police responded by 
firing tear gas, dispersing the crowd. 
 
9. (C) According to numerous sources, locals also stoned 
buses entering Damanhour if they bore license plates from 
neighboring provinces, suspecting they were transporting 
outsiders to vote for Fiqqi.  A journalist told poloff she 
had seen one such attack, in which a bus with Manoufiya 
license plates turned around and made a hasty retreat out of 
Damanhour after its windshield was shattered by a hail of 
rocks thrown by local MB supporters. 
 
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A Strange Outcome 
----------------- 
 
10. (C) Just before midnight on November 20, we heard from a 
police source that "Heshmat definitely won the race."  On the 
morning of November 21, contacts in the domestic monitoring 
community were reporting that Heshmat's victory had been 
massive.  Kifaya, the Egyptian Movement for Change, posted on 
its website a report that Heshmat had received 34,000 votes 
to Fiqqi's 8,000.  However, by mid-morning on November 21, 
our western journalist contact told us his MB "friends" in 
Damanhour were telling him that the electoral commission 
would "invert" the results, giving Fiqqi more than 20,000 
votes and Heshmat well below half as many. 
 
11. (C) Egyptian media began to report Heshmat's "loss" by 
midday on November 21 but Al-Jazeera continued to report the 
Heshmat's victory as of late afternoon.  "There is no way 
Fiqqi beat Heshmat," our journalist contact asserted, "if 
they let Fiqqi win, that town will launch an intifada." 
Throughout the day, the parliamentary elections commission 
trickled out results of various second stage races (including 
12 outright MB victories, up from 4 outright MB victories on 
day 1 of the first stage) but remained silent on the 
Damanhour race. By early November 22, al-Ahram, the leading 
pro-government daily, reported that Mostafa Fiqqi had won the 
seat in Damanhour with a total of 22,982 votes.  The report 
declined to mention Heshmat at all. 
 
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Revenge Deferred 
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12. (C) Our journalist contact who had "embedded" with the 
Heshmat campaign the previous week has since returned to 
Cairo but continues to work the phone with MB contacts in 
Damanhour.  He related that many of Heshmat's supporters had 
wanted to take to the streets to "retaliate" against the 
GOE's "injustice," but Heshmat himself had been exerting 
efforts to restrain his angry supporters.  This restraint, 
our contact believed, was exemplary of the MB's discipline as 
an organization. 
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Comment 
 
13. (C) The circumstances of Heshmat's defeat are very 
similar to first-round episodes in the greater Cairo 
districts of Dokki and Nasr City, where popular MB candidates 
fell to prominent NDP figures in spite of strong evidence, 
and widespread public perception that the MB candidates had 
won those seats.  At the same time, Heshmat's case, and the 
cases in Dokki and Nasr City, are not reflected in the 
overall trend of MB victories in this year's legislative 
elections.  Reporting from domestic monitors has so far 
alleged only isolated cases of outright vote-rigging.  The MB 
won 12 seats outright on November 20, three times as many as 
it won on the first day of stage one and have already 
secured, overall, 46 seats in the next parliament (they held 
16 in the outgoing parliament), with this year's elections 
not yet half over.  It may be that Heshmat's loss, and the 
two in the first round, are isolated instances in which 
well-connected, if unelectable, NDP figures were able to use 
their influence to ensure their fraudulent victories.  Even 
if the Damanhour, Dokki, and Nasr City races do indeed prove 
to be exceptional, however, the GOE's critics are likely to 
seize on them as emblematic of the persistence of the "old 
ways" of rigging elections as Egypt tries to move toward a 
new democratic era.  End comment. 
 
 
RICCIARDONE