Court upholds 1-year prison sentence for opposition presidential contender Ahmed Tantawi’s campaign manager

A Cairo court upheld on Wednesday a one-year sentence for former presidential hopeful Ahmed Tantawi's campaign manager, Mohamed Aboul Diyar.

Tantawi and his campaign were met with security restrictions and harassment throughout the lead-up to 2023’s presidential ballot.

Diyar is one of 21 campaign members, along with Tantawi himself, who face prison sentences on charges of electoral fraud after their bid to challenge President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s reelection.

They were referred to  a misdemeanors court for trial in November on charges that they encouraged and funded the production and circulation of forged nomination forms to members of the public to collect endorsements for Tantawi during the nomination phase of the election.

Members of the public seeking to register their official support for Tantawi’s nomination at local deeds registry offices were met with harassment and physical violence with no intervention by the police. Campaign members subsequently circulated the endorsement forms, which were available online, to supporters, planning to return them en masse to local deeds registry offices. Security authorities apprehended campaign members and confiscated the forms before referring them to investigation. 

Tantawi, a former MP for Kafr al-Sheikh, was sentenced to a year in prison in February by the Matareya Misdemeanors Court, which set bail at LE20,000. Tantawi was also prohibited from running in parliamentary elections for five years. The court issued the same sentence for Aboul Diyar. 

The same court upheld the ruling against Aboul Diyar on Wednesday. In a statement condemning the ruling, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights noted that a legal challenge by the defendant’s lawyers seeking to establish the court’s impartiality was turned down by a North Cairo circuit court in April.

The Matareya court is due to rule on appeals against the sentences for Tantawi and the 20 other members of his campaign later this month, EIPR said.Since Tantawi’s announcement that he intended to run in the 2023 presidential election, members of his family were subject to harassment and arrests.

Campaign members were later arrested from sites across the country, while supporters of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is now serving his third term in office after being reelected with 89.6 percent of the votes, assaulted Tantawi supporters at deeds registry offices, where members of the public register their endorsements for presidential nominations. Many voters told Mada Masr that they had received money in exchange for casting their ballots.