Campaigning to begin Tuesday for Egypt's parliamentary elections

Gamal Essam El-Din , Monday 28 Sep 2015

Egypt
File Photo: Egypt's parliamentary elections (Photo: Al-Ahram)

On Saturday, the Higher Election Committee (HEC), the ‎seven-member judicial body in charge of supervising ‎Egypt's upcoming parliamentary elections, announced ‎that campaigning for the first stage of the polls will be ‎allowed between 29 September and 15 October. ‎

According to HEC's spokesperson Omar Marawan, ‎campaigning will officially kick off Tuesday and continue ‎for 17 days.

"HEC's poll timetable also states that there ‎will be a ‘silent day’ on 16 October to be followed by the ‎vote for Egyptians abroad on 17-18 October and for ‎Egyptians inside Egypt on 18-19 October," said ‎Marawan, adding that "in case of a run-off, voting ‎abroad will take place on 26 and 27 October, while ‎voting in Egypt will be on 27 and 28 October."‎

Concerns surround influence of wealthy candidates

Campaigning will go ahead this week amid fears that ‎the affluent candidates will have an upper hand. HEC's ‎statistics show that 45 per cent of candidates in the two-‎stage polls are businessmen and ‎rich landlords with wide-scale tribal and familial ‎connections.‎

A study published by Al-Ahram newspaper on 22 ‎September concluded that, as election laws allocate 73 ‎percent of seats in parliament to independents, almost half of these candidates are expected to come from ‎a business background.

"Businessmen prefer to run as ‎independents and as the election laws allocated the ‎majority of seats to independents, they were eager to ‎run and are now ready to spend millions to get seats in ‎parliament," Nabil Zaki, spokesperson for the leftist ‎Tagammu party, told Al-Ahram Online. ‎

Zaki also argues that "the collapse of most of Egypt's ‎political parties after two revolutions in four years has ‎also helped open the door wide for independent ‎businessmen to run in parliamentary elections."

"Some ‎of these belong to (former president Hosni) Mubarak's ‎ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), but many ‎others are businessmen who were encouraged to run ‎for the first time," said Zaki.‎

The lists of party-based candidates also include a ‎considerable number of businessmen. The lists affiliated ‎with the electoral coalition entitled "For the Love of ‎Egypt" includes at least eleven high-profile ‎businessmen. Some like oil tycoon Akmal Qortam and ‎electricity cable magnate Zaki Al-Sewedey were ‎members of Mubarak's NDP and ran before, while ‎others like Farag Amer, Alexandria's food industrialist ‎and chairman of Semouha Club, have decided to run ‎for the first time.‎

Zaki expects that spending on election campaigns will ‎far exceed the financial limits imposed by the HEC. "I do not ‎expect that the HEC will be able in any way to stem the tide ‎of spending because it does not have the adequate and ‎effective tools to do so," said Zaki.‎

HEC plans to curb high spending

Marawan said a specialized HEC subcommittee was ‎formed to be in charge of overseeing the election ‎campaigns and making sure they comply with the rules. ‎‎

"Offenders will face financial penalties ranging from ‎LE10,000 to LE100,000 and if violations were found ‎serious, offenders would be eliminated from the list of ‎candidates," said Marawan.‎

Marawan, however, indicated that "citizens or media ‎personnel who want to report violations should do this in a ‎professional way…I mean that these violations should ‎be videotaped as a stipulation to be investigated by ‎the HEC," said Marawan, indicating that "newspaper photos ‎showing campaign violations can never be approved by ‎the HEC."‎

In a report issued on 26 September, the Arab ‎Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR) said some ‎candidates have launched their election campaigns very ‎early. "They seized the Muslim feast of Eid Al-Adha to ‎launch their election campaigns in violation of the HEC's ‎rules," said AOHR, adding that "these violations, ‎however, were not serious enough to be reported to ‎the HEC."‎

According to HEC rules, an independent candidate may not ‎spend more than LE500,000 in the first round and ‎LE200,000 in case of a run-off. 

They also determined that a ‎list of 15 party candidates cannot exceed the spending ‎limits of LE2.5 million in the first round and LE1 million ‎in the case of a run-off. 

A list of 45 party candidates ‎cannot spend more than LE7.5 million in the first round, ‎and no more than LE3 million in the case of a run-off.‎

The HEC also stressed that candidates are prohibited from ‎issuing religious or racist slogans and from campaigning in ‎mosques or churches.

The Ministry of Awqaf (Endowments) said it will make ‎sure that mosques will not be exploited by any ‎candidates for campaigning purposes. The Ministry said ‎it has prevented many of the clerics of the Islamist ‎salafist party from using mosques or raising religious or ‎sectarian slogans in any governorate. ‎

Under the former regime of Islamist president ‎Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood ‎allowed the use of religious slogans "as long as ‎secularists are allowed to use secular slogans." ‎

The first stage of Egypt's parliamentary elections will be ‎held in 14 governorates (out of a total 27). These ‎include 11 governorates in upper Egypt (Giza, Al-‎Fayoum, Beni Suef, Al-Minya, Assuit, New Valley, Sohag, ‎Qena, Luxor, Aswan, and the Red Sea), one Nile Delta ‎governorate (Al-Beheira) and two Mediterranean ‎governorates (Alexandria and Marsa Matruh).‎

A number of 286 seats will be up for competition in the ‎first stage, with 226 seats for independents and 60 seats ‎for party-based lists. The 226 independents will be ‎elected from 103 constituencies, and the 60 party-based ‎candidates will come from two constituencies (one with ‎‎45 seats in eleven governorates in North, Middle, and ‎South Upper Egypt and the other with 15 seats in three ‎governorates in West Delta).‎

Around 5,500 candidates will be running in Egypt's ‎parliamentary elections, with a little more than half ‎of this figure facing off in the first stage.‎

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