CAIRO, 30 August 2005 — Egypt’s leading nongovernmental rights group said yesterday it did not expect the country’s first multi-candidate presidential vote to be fair because of inadequate independent supervision and a lack of transparency. The concerns of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights echo criticism by other groups which also complain about the makeup of the election oversight committee and its decision to bar access to polling stations for independent observers.

President Hosni Mubarak, 77, in power for 24 years, is widely expected to win the Sept. 7 election against nine other contestants. But he has pledged a fair fight.

“I don’t expect we will reach a fair or true result because steps until now by the (election) committee have shown a lot of arbitrariness and a lack of transparency,” EOHR Secretary-General Hafez Abu Seada said.

Meanwhile, the trial of two suspects in the deadly October attacks on Sinai resorts was adjourned to late September after two days of hearings to call more witnesses, the court’s judge said. The suspects, Mohammed Gaiez Al-Sabah and Mohammed Rubaa Addallah, are charged with carrying out the bombings that killed at least 34 people at the Hilton Hotel in Taba and two other Sinai resorts on Oct. 7, 2004. Ahmed Al-Khashab said the trial which opened in early July would resume on Sept. 25 and 26, citing the need to call three more witnesses to the stand.

“The head of security in south Sinai, his aide and officer Walid Bura’i from state security who is not currently in Ismailiya must appear as witnesses before the court,” said the judge.