Egypt's local elections start amid violation claims (Roundup)

Apr 8, 2008, 15:05 GMT

Cairo - Voting for Egyptian local councils got underway Tuesday amid a boycott by the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and allegations of election procedure violations by civil society groups.

Fardia al-Nakkash, editor-in-chief of the Tagamo opposition party's newspaper Ahaly, dismissed as 'forged' in discussing the vote with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

'The elections have started since the application date, when many violations were committed by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP),' al-Nakkash said.

'They (NDP) prevented many candidates of other opposition parties to apply for the elections and stood today unopposed,' she added.

Only 1,000 of the councils' 52,000 seats were being contested between opposition parties Wafd, Nassiry and Tagamo and the NDP.

Of the remaining seats, the NDP was unopposed for 45,000 seats, while a further 6,000 seats were being contested only by NDP candidates.

In Cairo, low turnouts were reported in most of the polling stations. There are separate voting stations for women and men.

In one of the polling stations in central Cairo, where the electoral list includes 5,964 names, only 50 voters had voted, mostly for NDP candidates, media reports said.

Campaigners for NDP candidates and opposition Tagamo were seen canvassing voters as they entered through the gates of the polling stations.

Voting was taking place in schools, each school having six polling stations with a head of the voting committee and another three assistants to observe the voting process.

Hoda Tolba, a government employee who voted for the NDP, told dpa that most of her friends and colleagues also voted for the NDP candidate, 'for providing them with services and facilities.'

'The NDP candidate is our manager and he serves all of us. We must vote for him,' Tolba said.

Abdul-Rahman Mohamed, voting committee head, said that most voters had voted for the NDP.

'NDP candidates order their employees to go vote for them. I am sure that most of the voters here came for the NDP,' he said.

'The voters believe that they are protected by the ruling political party,' Mohamed added.

However, Tagamo candidate Fatema al-Zahraa told dpa that there was a low turnout for both Tagamo and the NDP. She claimed that NDP candidates were not leading the elections. She also said their campaigners were not committing violations in the voting process.

She said the number of voters was expected to significantly increase by the time polls closed at 7 pm (1700 GMT).

In the textile town of Mahalla al-Kubra, where tensions prevailed after two days of clashes between protestors and police, voting for local councils was cancelled.

Candidates of different political parties, including NDP, reached an agreement in which some NDP candidates withdrew in favouor of other candidates of opposition parties such as Tagamo, Geel and Wafd and independent candidates

But in governorates across Egypt, there were claims of procedure violations against voters and candidates of opposition parties.

In upper Egypt, observers from civil society groups and representatives of opposition and independent candidates were not permitted to enter polling stations, according to one group, the Egyptian association for training Human Rights

Elsewhere, local residents told dpa that governmental employees were ordered to vote for the NDP candidates, while voting cards were rigged for the favour of the NDP.

Meanwhile the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement was boycotting the vote in protest against a government crackdown against its candidates. Only 20 out of 6,000 Muslim Brotherhood members were accepted as candidates, prompting the group to boycott the election.