By Marwa Al-A’asar
CAIRO: Just a few hours before the nomination application deadline on Sunday for the People’s Assembly (PA) elections, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) fielded candidates to contest all 508 seats, with some constituencies featuring more then one NDP candidate vying for the same seat.
The NDP Secretary General Safwat El-Sherif said in a statement published by the NDP’s official website on Sunday that the party had decided to present more than one candidate in a number of constituencies after reviewing the results of various surveys and polls that were conducted among NDP members.
El-Sherif added that the NDP will give the voters the opportunity to express their personal choice when electing the MPs who will represent them.
The party’s electoral lists include new candidates along with current MPs who are running for reelection.
The NDP’s latest announcement is seen by analysts and the opposition parties as an indication of the NDP’s inability to manage its internal differences.
“Politically, this [decision] indicates that that party is unable to penalize [NDP] members [who decided to run as independents against the party’s will],” said Nabil Abdel-Fatah, senior researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
“The [NDP] fears that [nonconforming party members] may run as independents … [and] join forces with the Muslim Brotherhood [MB],” Abdel-Fatah told Daily News Egypt. “And some of them may not return to the [NDP] after the elections are over.”
Some MB-affiliated candidates share Abdel-Fatah’s view.
“The [competition among NDP candidates] resulted from a conflict among the NDP members,” Hussein Ibrahim, an MB-affiliated independent candidate in Alexandria, told Daily News Egypt. “This indicates that the NDP is a party based on personal interests … many [NDP] candidates have donated a lot of money [to the NDP] to be nominated by the party.”
Ibrahim believes that the NDP’s decision will be beneficial to the Muslim Brotherhood.
“[The NDP candidates] will hinder each other; and the division of their votes will [likely] be in our best interest,” he said.
However, Mohamed Khalil Kwaitah, a Damietta MP in the 2005-10 parliamentary round and NDP candidate now running against two other NDP candidates, lauded the his party’s announcement.
“This allows transparency, integrity and openness in the electoral process, and leaves the final decision to the voters,” Kwaitah told Daily News Egypt.
Kwaitah denied that the NDP may have taken such a step to appease members of the NDP.
“This is out of the question,” Kwaitah said. “What matters … are the party’s interests and the [interests of the nation]. The NDP wants its candidates to win, and in the end the people will be the ones to have the final say.”
The NDP candidates were reportedly the last to apply for nomination. Some signed up only one hour before the registration closed on Sunday.
The Supreme Electoral Commission (SEC) declared Sunday that a total of 5,720 candidates had joined the race for the upcoming PA polls scheduled for Nov. 28. They will compete for over 508 seats, including 64 new seats that have been created and allocated exclusively for female candidates.
Based on the constitution, the PA exercises Egypt’s legislative power and approves the general policies of the state, the nation’s general plan for economic and social development, and Egypt’s general budget.
The Constitution also specifies how the PA may control work conducted by the executive authority.
The law requires that at least 350 people be elected to the PA, at least half of which must be workers and farmers elected via secret ballots.
Egypt’s president may also appoint a maximum of 10 people to serve as representatives in the PA.
Meanwhile, 60 independent candidates — including MB members in Alexandria — were excluded from the general election registration list on Monday, according to MB parliamentary bloc spokesman Hamdy Hassan.
“We were given no justification for being excluded … all our registration papers were complete,” Ibrahim told Daily News Egypt.
The candidates appealed the SEC’s decision and are waiting for a response.
“Apparently these elections are going to be rough,” Hassan told Daily News Egypt.
Candidates of the MB, an organization that is officially banned from politics according to Egyptian law, typically run in parliamentary elections as independent candidates. In 2005, the MB won 88 seats — almost 20 percent of the 445 seats, which established the group as the largest opposition group in the PA at the time.
