Kinship and ethnicity influence voters' in upper Egypt

By Pakinam Amer Jun 9, 2007, 21:26 GMT

Aswan, Egypt - When asked which candidate he supported, a young voter from Aswan named Mohammed Atta smiled, then simply said: 'I can't say. It's too embarrassing.'

Atta's manner embodies the general mood in Aswan ahead of Monday's Shura council midterm elections. There, several candidates of the same party are also tribal leaders tribes in the society with a population of around 1.1 million, according to municipal statistics.

Atta later told a reporter that all his acquaintances knew that he would vote for his tribe, but he does not like making his choice known.

An Aswan-based senior member of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) said people are both 'confused and uncomfortable' with the idea of more than one candidate running for the same seat.

'They're dividing the voters,' added the high-profile member who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Aswan lies on the east bank of the Nile and is both a strong industrial city and a tourist attraction. It harbours the 3.6- kilometre High Dam, Egypt's key power generator and Lake Nasser, reputed to be the world's largest artificial lake.

Aswan's busy NDP headquarters has posters of six candidates from the same party who are running for the Cairo-based consultative body with 264 seats. According to the NDP's general secretary in Aswan, Khalaf Youssef Saed, the party has fielded 'its strongest candidates' for this election.

He insisted that party followers were happy with what he termed 'a new experiment' and dismissed allegations of confusion among voters saying people confused themselves by voting for a distant relative rather than for the best candidate.

The famous tribes and ethnicities of Aswan, near the Sudanese border, include the Jaafara tribe, who claim to be descended from Jaafar al-Sadek and trace their heritage back to Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammed, founder of Islam.

Another tribe called the Ansar claim they are descendants of the People of the Medina among whom Prophet Mohammed found solace after he was driven out of Mecca hundreds of years ago. Abbadis and Abbasids are two of the large tribes represented in these elections.

According to voters, supporting kin is a must even if their 'relative is a mere farmer and his contestant is a scientist,' in the words of a registered voter.

The elections could yet turn nasty. According to Diyab Abudllah, a candidate calling himself Hajj, flyers circulated in the city are spreading rumours about him.

'I hate prejudice and intolerance. And for me the whole thing is not unlike a football match. Nevertheless, some other candidates chose to play the game differently and spread rumours about me,' said Abdullah.

He expressed concern about multiple-candidacies. The NDP does not support their candidates now because they cannot back one and not the other.

'People are perplexed,' he added. 'There is a lot of ignorance. So in the end, people may decide to vote for both NDP contestants thinking that they're supporting the party this way without knowing that the candidates are actually rivals.'

'It is the absolute democracy,' said Aswan's governor Samir Youssef in reference to NDP's decision to field more than one candidate.

'There is more than one star in the constituencies and everyone of these feels he deserves to run for candidacy. The NDP is giving them all their chances.'

Aswan has two main constituencies. One of them encompasses the upper-Egyptian city of Aswan and the northern township of Daraw where 11 candidates including two from NDP, are contesting two seats.

In the second constituency, 19 candidates have registered their candidates from the northern towns of Edfo and Komb Ombo - which are both under the governance of the Aswan province.

The NDP had fielded four candidates for two seats in the second constituency. Despite NDP members' concerns that the votes will be divided owing to multiple candidacies from the ruling party, others insist that the NDP have no 'big competitors.'

Many independent candidates were affiliated with NDP, but left when the party did not enlist them for the Shura elections. According to NDP leaders, these independents could be won back if they score a victory in the elections.

But Egypt's foremost opposition the Muslim Brotherhood - a banned but popular religious group - is not strong in Aswan. They are not fielding a candidate in upper Egypt, an announcement said.

More than 34 million registered voters are expected to cast their votes in the Shura elections, which begin on Monday. The candidates are competing for 88 seats in 57 constituencies across 24 Egyptian provinces - 11 seats have already been granted to candidates running alone in their constituencies.