Former members of the party that ruled Egypt for more than 30 years found pockets of support on Monday in the first parliamentary election since a popular uprising in January, but many voters said they knew who they were and would give them a wide berth.
Know locally as “feloul”, Arabic for “remnants”, members of deposed President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) are free to stand in the election, provided they have not been convicted of corruption or other serious abuses. During preparation for the election over the past months, the political forces behind the uprising had fretted that many feloul would reappear in parliament thanks to their cash reserves, their local connections, or their experience with mobilising thugs to scare off their opponents. But many of the most prominent feloul have decided not to stand and where they have reorganised in new political parties, those parties carry a stigma that put off many potential voters. In Fayoum, for example, a fertile depression in the desert southwest of Cairo, no member of the prominent Wali family is seeking a seat in parliament this year, possibly for the first time since the 1960s, local politicians said. Where former NDP members did stand on Monday, their supporters defended them on the grounds that they did not qualify as feloul because they were really independents who joined the old ruling party to get access to government funds and projects for the constituency.
‘WON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN’: In the Mediterranean port of Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest city, Kareem Nabil, 28, a student and religious conservative, wrote off two independent candidates whose campaigns had cars driving around with loudspeakers and posters. “Another feloul,” he said. “They won’t fool anybody. Egyptians have had enough.” In another incident in the city, young men were passing out pamphlets for another independent candidate people identified as feloul. Two women took the pamphlets, looked at them and then shoved them back into the hands of the volunteer. “You can go vote for that one yourself,” one of the woman said and they both walked off. “This man is from the Mubarak era. We’re past that,” she said. Where former NDP members are serious contenders, they tend to be from prominent families that enjoy local prestige independently of their old party affiliations. In one Fayoum constituency, former police officer and NDP member Yasser Salloum is standing for the newly created Freedom Party, one of the parties associated with the feloul.
But Mohamed Ata, his agent in the village of Kafr al-Zaafarana, said Salloum had never sought office before so he had a clean slate. The candidate has extensive property and comes from a well-known local family, the agent added. Personal favours and obligations can play a part in support for former NDP members. In Alexandria, one woman said she was voting for the brother of a man convicted for his role in the murder of a Lebanese singer and senior NDP official, Hesham Talaat Moustafa, because of Hesham’s largesse to her family.
Meanwhile, Egypt hailed Tuesday the start of its first post-revolution election as a triumph for democracy as more voters headed to the polls, boosting turn-out for a vote that had looked in doubt last week.On Tuesday, the arrival of people at polling booths was a steady stream rather than the deluge seen the day before.“I decided to come today to avoid the crowds,” 30-year-old Rafik told AFP in the Heliopolis area of Cairo. “It was important for me to vote because I feel it’s the first time that my opinion is taken into account.” The formerly banned Muslim Brotherhood, a moderate Islamist group, is expected to emerge as the largest power, but without a majority, when results for the new lower house of parliament are published on January 13.
