Egypt poll lures few in ex-militant fiefdom

By Andrew Hammond

CAIRO (Reuters): Judging by the election posters in the Cairo slum of Imbaba, Islam is no longer the solution.

The rallying cry of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, is nowhere to be seen in this sprawling district, eight years after 12,000 police stormed in to crush a power base of Islamic militants near the heart of the capital.

Imbaba residents go to the polls on Wednesday (Nov 8) with the rest of Cairo in the final stage of parliamentary elections which President Hosni Mubarak promised would be free and fair.

The Brotherhood has complained of systematic harassment by police who have detained hundreds of campaign workers, but its candidates still managed to win at least 14 seats in the first two rounds of voting for the 454-member assembly.

The Brotherhood, Egypt's largest and most influential Islamist group, has kept a low profile since a 1995 crackdown when the government accused it of benefiting from chaos created by an armed Islamist insurgency then in full swing.

The organization, which officially shuns violence as a means of attaining its goal of turning Egypt into a strict Islamic state, has backed only 75 candidates running as independents.

It fielded about twice as many in the 1995 election when it was allied to the now-suspended Labour Party.

Ali Abdel-Hamid, the sole Brotherhood-endorsed candidate in Imbaba, has made no public appearances and raised no banners. Few residents say they have heard of the 32-year-old lawyer.

"The Brotherhood candidate isn't in public at all," said the opposition Wafd party candidate Mamdouh Ga'li, though he does not rule out a surprise win for the secretive organization.

The Brotherhood, founded in 1928 by Egyptian schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna, was outlawed in 1954 after an attempt on the life of former president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Since then, state repression has alternated with periods of uneasy tolerance.

Islamists in Imbaba have to take special care.

In December 1992, some 12,000 paramilitary police swept through the decrepit streets to root out al-Gama'a al-Islamiya (Islamic Group), Egypt's biggest militant organization.

The Gama'a, running a large social welfare network as well as an armed militia, had briefly dominated Imbaba, where about one million people live, crammed into jerry-built tenements.

If that influence enraged the authorities, it has never translated into a parliamentary presence for Islamists of any kind in elections traditionally dominated by Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).

Nevertheless, the government has been making strenuous efforts to win hearts and minds in Imbaba.

"They have paved the streets, installed street-lighting and created previously non-existent services," said shopkeeper Salaheddin Ali Mohsen, pointing to a youth center, gardens, a market and a hospital on the main street.

Dust and garbage have prematurely aged the buildings, all constructed since the eviction of the Gama'a in 1992.

"People haven't really seen much positive happen here," Mohsen reflected. Ten years ago, Imbaba barely featured on maps. "Thirty years ago, all this was green," he added.

Religiously-minded young men voice cynicism about the official efforts to uplift Imbaba, but with no safe outlet for their views, they keep a strict distance from politics.

It was not the government's money that spruced up the district's services and amenities, sneered Ashraf, 35, who sports the long beard favored by many men as a sign of piety.

"The whole of Imbaba was cleaned up with foreign money," he said, adding: "I never did vote and I don't intend to vote".

Ideology has less to do with voting habits than ever, Ashraf said, citing the claims made by most candidates to have a hot- line to the authorities as their best electoral card.

A total of 29 people are standing for two seats in Imbaba. Most are alienated NDP figures challenging the party's two official candidates, making the battle largely one between the ruling party and people likely to rejoin it if they win.

"They have no program or ideology. All they can offer are services," said Adel Abu Tawila, standing for the leftist Tagammu party.

Lamenting the fact that legal opposition parties have fielded only four candidates in Imbaba between them, he said the decline of Islamist politics because of official repression had encouraged a worrying process of de-politicization.

"The new young generation is not joining the Islamists, partly because of the media campaign against them," he said. "The street has rejected them."

In the absence of the Brotherhood's once ubiquitous slogan "Islam is the solution", Abu Tawila's "Together against corruption" posters stand out as the only appeal to anything vaguely ideological.

Many locals have turned a blind eye to the election campaign. Others have taken a different approach entirely.

Sherif Ahmed has adorned the walls of his busy bakery with the election propaganda of five different candidates, in what he sees as a healthy form of political insurance.

"Let any one of them win, I don't care. Whoever wins, wins," he shrugged.