The Diwan (place where tribes gather) was full of the sons from the al-Ammari family when Muhammad Khalil Abu al-Majd al-Ammari, a former member of the dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP), announced that he would nominate himself in the first elections to be held in Egypt since the June 30 Revolution.
Hamada’s mere presence at the family’s Diwan was considered an approval of the family’s elders, who are heavily present in the areas of Karnak, al-Ammari and Najaa Badran in Luxor Governorate.
No elections without tribal alliances
The Diwan (place where tribes gather) was full of the sons from the al-Ammari family when Muhammad Khalil Abu al-Majd al-Ammari, a former member of the dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP), announced that he would nominate himself in the first elections to be held in Egypt since the June 30 Revolution.
Hamada’s mere presence at the family’s Diwan was considered an approval of the family’s elders, who are heavily present in the areas of Karnak, al-Ammari and Najaa Badran in Luxor Governorate.
No elections without tribal alliances
“I joined the National Party after my success as an independent candidate in the 2005 session under the pressure of the district’s people because the NDP was the ruling party of the country,” said Muhammad al-Ammari, also known as Hamada. “I decided to run this time under the banner of the Egyptian Alliance Front (EAF) to respond to the pressure exerted by the district’s people and the sons of the al-Ammari family, not to pursue any personal interests. It is up to the street and the ballot boxes to decide who will reach the parliament.”
Hamada al-Almmari is not the only symbol of the dissolved NDP seeking the blessings of his family members, as is the most important way of reaching the parliament’s seats in Upper Egypt. Most of the old NDP MPs, are doing the same.
In the same governorate, Bahjat al-Sun, Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Abu Zaid, Muhammad Abdul-Aleem al-Dabaawi, Ali al-Basel, Khaled Mujahed and Wael Zakariya al-Ameer, also announced their plans to run for the forthcoming parliamentary elections from the Diwans of their influential families. Nobody could ever think of competing in the elections without well considering tribal alliances and policies in this area.
The tribe as an entry into political life
A little bit to the north, and in the Qena governorate, the scene is more intense because of the presence of three big tribal blocs: al-Ashraf, al-Hawara, and al-Arab. These three blocs have already announced their support of candidates who were affiliated with the dissolved NDP such as Hisham al-Shaaini, Khaled Khalaf-Alla, Fathi Qandil and Mubarak Abu al-Hajjaj, Tareq Raslan, and Abdul-Fattah Danqal.
The situation is not much different in the Minya, Assiut, Beni Suef, Sohag and Aswan governorates. People from Upper Egypt have the tendency to cling to their tribal affiliations for many reasons, most importantly, the sense of belonging to a certain tribe or family strengthens a sense of identity and protection. In addition, tribes in this region play an important role in politics as well as in elections.
These tendencies are becoming evident although there were expectations that the most prominent symbols of the dissolved NDP in Upper Egypt would have no intentions of participating in the upcoming parliamentary elections and that the candidates of the dissolved party would only be a few remnants and some businessmen and that most of the former parliamentarians of the dissolved party would be absent.
Karim Nasr al-Din, Secretary General of the Liberal Egyptian Party in Luxor confirmed that the alliance between the dissolved party and the symbols of these tribes as well as the families of Upper Egypt has given them a political weight through which they can dominate the electoral scene and guide the tribes’ sons to vote to the candidate, who is a son of a tribe.
Nasr al-Din pointed out that the NDP was the only party present in Upper Egypt and in the border governorates before the January 25 Revolution and always relied on tribal affiliations of candidates to attract votes.
The Secretary General believes that some parties such as the Liberal Egyptian Party, the Congress, the Republican People’s Party, My Homeland Egypt Party, and even the al-Wafd Party have sought to mobilize some of the symbols of the dissolved party, who are mainly the symbols and elders of these tribes and families because they enjoy lots of popularity among their tribes.
Ahmad Muhammad, one of the al-Ababdeh tribe’s leaders, believe that the reason behind tribal dominance over elections in these governorates lies in the fact that these tribes and the families of Upper Egypt, have found themselves legally responsible for choosing their own representatives and for coordinating with other families to make their demands and the problems of their districts reach decision-makers and get a fair share of the returns of the anticipated development. “This has made the sons of the one family stand together behind one tribal or family candidate to achieve their goals,” explained Muhammad.
Competition between tribes rather than between political parties
Thus, it seems that there is a tribal scene dominating the parliamentary elections in Upper Egypt and this may allow a number of the Egyptian former President Hosni Mubarak party’s member to again enter parliament under the cloak of new political parties and currents. These have found in tribalism their gateway to return to the political scene in light of the disappearance of the revolution’s youth and the weakness of political parties that have emerged after the revolution, with some of these parties attempting to get help from these persons to secure seats in the next parliament.
From the above argument, it becomes clear that competition in these areas is not between political parties and their ideas, rather a competition between the al-Hawara, al-Ashraf, al-Ababdeh, and al-Jaafra tribes, the biggest in southern Egypt, whose members claim that they are the descendants of the Arabian Peninsula who came with Amr ibn al-Aas (Arab conqueror of Egypt) during the Islamic conquest of the Nile Valley in 641 AD or even during the centuries that have followed.
“In the end,” according to Abu Bakr Fadel, an activist and a founding member of the Leftist Bread and Freedom party, “the authority of the tribe did not change after the revolution.” In an article which he published in al-Ahram Newspaper in 2011, Fadel said that he had warned against the return of the NDP symbols in Upper Egypt governorates because of the dominant tribal tendencies in these areas.
