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Abstract
This article examines how the procedural aspects of Egypt's first presidential elections permitted the ruling regime to persist without a serious challenge. By taking stock of how the procedural rules of the game were manipulated to favour the incumbent, and the creation of an administrative body with extrajudicial powers guaranteeing the known result, this article will argue that the character of Constitutional Amendment 76 sET a precedent that will likely favour the succession in 2011 of Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal.
Notes
1. According to the PEC's figures, the former air force general won 6,316,784 of the 7,131,851 valid votes cast. Runner‐up, Ayman Nour, had 540,405 votes (7.57 per cent) while in third place, Noma'n Goma'a, won 208,891 votes (2.93 per cent). The remaining seven candidates won 0.9 per cent of the vote.
2. Prior to September's presidential election, Egypt's president was selected by a two‐thirds endorsement by the People's Assembly and then subjected the single candidate to a national referendum.
3. The amendment of Article 76 details the PEC's various duties such as candidate selection, supervision of procedures, and announcing the results. Also, the PEC maintains ‘full judicial competence to rule on any contestation or challenge submitted in relation to the presidential elections, and its decisions will be final and subject to no appeal.’ A number of Arab countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco have adopted election commissions.
4. The president appointed Mamduh Mare'i as the Supreme Constitutional Court's chief justice in August 2003.
5. The president made campaign speeches in Cairo's Al‐Azhar Park, 10th Ramadan City, Beheria, Malaha Al‐Kubra, Al‐Minya, Mansourah, Assuit, Dumeita, Zagazig, Alexandria, and Cairo's Abdeen Square.
6. Nour's political star exploded when he was arrested for forging membership documents in the party application process. The case was highly politicised and drew disproportionate attention from the US government. Several editorials were penned in major US dailies, such as the Washington Post, during his 42 days of detention between 27 January and 13 March 2005. After he was released on bail, Nour's trial began on 28 June 2005 and on 24 December 2005, Nour was sentenced to 5 years for forgery. The Court of Cassation rejected his last possible legal appeal on 18 May 2006.
7. Port Said is unfriendly to Mubarak because the president withdrew its duty free status in January 2001. The Port Said business community interpreted this move, which hurt the economic viability of the city, as retribution for the assassination attempt on Mubarak in Port Said on 6 September 1999. Al‐Mahala al‐Kubra is the town that hosted textile companies that used to export to the US before the Egyptian‐Israeli governments signed a Qualified Industrial Zone (QIZ) agreement excluding Al‐Mahala's factories. Al‐'Arish is a current place of tension since the Hilton Taba bombing on 7 October 2004 where 34 mostly Egyptian and Israeli citizens died. The Egyptian authorities believed that Al‐'Arish was the mastermind and conducted a crackdown on the city arresting close to 2,500 people in November and December 2004.
8. Goma'a served as Al‐Wafd deputy‐chairman between 1989 and 2000. After longtime party president, Fouad Sarag Al‐Din, died at the age of 90 in August 2000, Goma'a was elected as president in October 2000. Following the presidential election and the party's poor parliamentary election showing, an internal power struggle erupted. Reformers within the Wafd, such as Mahmud Abaza, Al‐Sayid Al‐Badawi, and Monir Fakhry Abd Al‐Nour, ousted Goma'a as party president in January 2006. An ambivalent response from the NDP‐chaired Political Parties Committee allowed the party's situation to deteriorate until 1 April when Goma'a and gun‐wielding thugs invaded the party's headquarters and shot 6 people and wounded dozens others. Documents and portions of the Wafd villa were also burned. Goma'a was arrested but was released without charge.
9. Rallies were held in Qena, Port Said, Rod Al‐Farag, Helwan, Bilbis, and Tanta.
10. When I asked why they chose not to hold an Alexandrian conference, vice‐president Mahmud Abaza explained, ‘The elite in Alexandria are snobs. They are very fickle and we did not think it would win us much support if we campaigned there’ (2005).
11. Bilbis in the Delta's Sharqiya governorate is a particular Al‐Wafd stronghold. In addition to Goma'a's distant relatives in the governorate, most of the steering committee members, such as Abaza, Mohamed Sarhan, and Al‐Sayid Al‐Badawi hail from Sharqiya.
12. As Goma'a spoke in Bilbis, supporters interrupted him frequently. This irritated Goma'a, who tried to stop people from whistling. When the crowd quieted, one person let out another whistle. Increasingly impatient, Goma'a shouted, ‘Whoever just whistled is a child and a coward.'
13. The fourth place candidate won just over 29,000 votes while the last had about 4,100 votes.
14. Ahmad Al‐Sabahy, Al‐Umma's candidate, promised to reinstate the Fez as the national headdress of Egyptian males if elected. Al‐Sabahy also famously said that ‘God forbid, if I win, I will give the presidency to Mubarak.’ During one of his press conferences he said that he was voting for Mubarak (Al‐Ahram, 29 August Citation2005).
15. Ayman Nour courted the Muslim Brotherhood vote by promising to grant them a party license if they supported his bid. Some prominent Brotherhood members then publicly endorsed Nour.
16. See Samer Shehata & Joshua Stacher, ‘The Brotherhood Goes to Parliament', Middle East Report, Fall 2006.
17. The demands included cancelling emergency law, abolishing the political parties committee, allowing parties to meet and demonstrate, cancelling the profession syndicate law, and providing access to state media.
18. Abd Al‐Razik blamed the low membership on Sadat's crackdown after the January 1977 ‘bread riots' when many of its members were arrested or simply resigned.