The Student Union (SU) and the Student Judicial Board (SJB) at the American University in Cairo (AUC) say they will enforce regulations more strictly in an effort to avoid the violence and chaos that plagued last year’s SU presidential elections.
“We are going to be stricter regarding physical contact,” said Bassel El Toukhy, a spokesman for the SJB. “The first violation will produce a warning, the second will cause the violator to be referred to the student legislative and judicial organizations,” he added.
Violations of the regulations used to receive two warnings before meriting dismissal from elections.
The elections will take place on May 5.
According to El Toukhy, punishment for physical contact will range from community service hours to suspension from the university, depending on the severity of the violation. “Candidates whose [campaigners] use physical contact as a strategy will be disqualified,” he said.
But, according to Sayed Omar, student activities coordinator, the candidates this year are signing the same rules and regulations contract that previous candidates have signed every year. “It’s hard to guess what will happen in [this year’s] elections,” he said.
The elections will last for one day, at the end of which the votes will be counted. The presidential debate will take place on Wednesday, April 30 when candidates will challenge each other and AUC students will get the chance to question candidates about their plans.
SU’s current president, Mohamed Yussr, had banned any current union members from announcing their candidacy before April 1 to allow less time for tensions to build up between the candidates.
Candidates last year had been announced as early as the beginning of the spring semester and elections, which had taken place over three days, were marred by violence that caught the attention of local media. On the second day, elections were suspended for four days and one candidate, Ahmed Abu Hussein, a political science senior, withdrew altogether.
Yussr said he is also relieved that the number of candidates this year has shrunk from five to two.
Mohamed Ashour, a business administration senior who has never worked in the SU, was prompted to run for SU president because the deteriorating image of the SU, especially its elections, was becoming embarrassing for him personally.
“I don’t want to graduate from AUC while it has this image,” he said.
Ashour added that, if elected, he would work on enhancing the university’s academics by helping students with academic advising and creating a student research unit. “Egypt’s contribution to global research is 0.0004%. Before we solve any of our problems, this has to change,” he said.
Mohamed Ali, a political science senior and the second candidate, says he is running to finish a job he has been working on for the past year: “I am the chair of the public relations committee in the SU and I’ve been working on ensuring the smooth transition to the new campus. I want to see that through,” he said.
Contrary to previous years, this years' candidates have not announced their candidates for vice president. “Although [a vice president] might give me voting power, I don’t want to pick someone [for that reason] and then be forced to put up with [him or her] for a year,” said Ali.
While the SJB is encouraging students to report any violations of election rules, which decree that candidates should stay away from voting areas and that all campaigning media and campaigners must be at least 23 yards away from the ballot box, some students are not convinced of the effectiveness of these rules.
“Last year there were restrictions, but things still got out of hand,” said Asmaa Al Zohairy, mass communications junior. “Hopefully after last year’s scandal, students will respect the rules,” she added.
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