CAIRO: The Engineers for Independence Coalition condemned the abuses and fraud that allegedly marred the Engineers’ Syndicate elections on Nov. 25 at a press conference held Wednesday at the syndicate.
The coalition also criticized the delay in announcing the election results.
“All Muslim Brotherhood allegations about their victory are completely false,” he continued, “even the judicial committee denounced such claims.”
Members of the Rally of Egyptian Engineers, the bloc supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, had claimed earlier according to press reports that their candidate for the syndicate chief post, Maged Kholousy, had won the election, with Kholousy confirming such claims himself.
“Until now no results have been declared. … We don’t know who won or who is winning and by what margin … All we have is just media propaganda by a certain party that claims to have won victory,” said Tarek Al-Nabarawy, the coalition’s candidate for the same top syndicate seat.
“Engineers were invited in November to vote in the first free elections after lifting the legal guardianship,” he said, “They were invited to register electronically prior to voting.”
The electronic registration system, he continued, was disrupted on the day of the election, which forced the organizers to proceed with paper registration instead.
“We accuse certain parties of causing this [disruption] on purpose … allowing some to be able to vote multiple times at different locations,” he said, noting that the syndicate wasn’t prepared with proper voter manifests for cross-checking.
In addition, he noted that not all polling stations had the necessary phosphoric ink to mark voters. “In fact many stations didn’t have any, such as in Assiut.”
He questioned the exceptionally long period of time it has taken so far to declare the election results, which were originally due within 24 hours of the voting.
“It’s taking a long time because there’s fraud involved,” claimed one of the attendees.
Al-Nabarawy stated that he had made a complaint consisting of two demands, the first of which was to cross-check the manifests of voters who had registered during the Friday election with the syndicate’s electronic database, to ensure that voters’ names were not repeated.
The second demand asked for recounting the votes in two sample districts, being Sharqeya and Menufiya. Campaigners said these two governorates were a sample of the two most blatant cases of fraud.
“If the votes in those two locations proved to be true and not fraudulent, we will dismiss all claims,” he said.
When asked why those two particular locations, campaign runners said they believed they were a sample of the two most blatant cases of fraud.
Al-Nabarawy maintained that he did not want to escalate the fight to external authorities beyond the syndicate administration, but warned that some will not hesitate to exercise their legal rights and appeal to the judiciary if the situation necessitates so.
