CAIRO, 15 June 2007 — Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit yesterday hit back at the United States for tying millions of dollars in military aid to Egypt’s human rights record. “Egypt cannot accept to abandon its sovereign rights, (or accept) any encroachment on the right of the Egyptian people to freedom of choice and independence,” Aboul Gheit said in a statement.
The US House of Representatives on Tuesday approved legislation aimed at pressuring Egypt to improve its human rights record by withholding $200 million in military funds until progress is made, local press reported. Egypt, a leading recipient of US economic and military aid, has received more than $60 billion since 1979, including $34 billion in foreign military financing credits to buy US materiel and services.
Aboul Gheit’s reaction comes amid mounting tension between the United States and ally Egypt over political reform. Cairo earlier this month reacted angrily to a call by President George W. Bush to free jailed dissident Ayman Nour, who was sentenced to five years in prison in 2005 for fraud, a charge widely seen as politically motivated. Aboul Gheit at the time said the call amounted to “unacceptable interference” in Egyptian affairs.
On Wednesday, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said his country was “deeply concerned” by reports of violence and irregularities in Egypt’s midterm election for Parliament’s upper house.
Clashes in Monday’s election left one person dead, and independent observers reported irregularities including the closure of polling stations, barring people from voting, as well as violence.
Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party has won a majority of seats in the election, the Higher Election Committee said. President Hosni Mubarak’s NDP party won 71 of the 88 contested seats, with 17 seats up for grabs in a second round to be held on June 18, HEC President Adel Andraus said in a statement late Wednesday. Voter turnout was 31 percent, Andraus said.
The opposition Muslim Brotherhood failed to win any seats. 17 seats in the council will be decided in a runoff election on June 18 in districts where no candidate won more than 50 percent of the seats, the election commission said.
Only two candidates from outside the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), one from the leftist Tagammu party and an independent, won seats outright. The government said turnout in the election was 31 percent.
