In a few months, the second term of the current head of the Journalists Syndicate, Khaled El-Balshy, which he began by winning the last mid-term elections, will come to an end. He was re-elected head of the syndicate on 2 May 2025, after winning 3,346 votes, ahead of his closest rival, former syndicate head and former chairman of the board of Al-Ahram Foundation Abdel Mohsen Salama, who received 2,562 votes, a margin of 784 votes, in elections described as having seen the highest turnout in the syndicate’s history.
This victory was an extension of an electoral surprise that El-Balshy, known for his affiliation with the leftist current and for his record of defending press freedom, achieved two years earlier, when he won the post for the first time on 17 March 2023, with 2,450 votes against 2,211 votes for his rival Khaled Miri, then editor-in-chief of Al-Akhbar newspaper. That result ended six years in which candidates backed by state institutions held the post, and journalists and experts considered it the beginning of a redrawing of the balance of power within the syndicate, with the rise of a current raising the slogans of union independence and press freedoms.
Although the next mid-term elections have not officially begun, and the map of candidates and alliances is not yet clear, early preparations for the battle over the post of syndicate head have become a topic of conversation in press circles. Journalists and professional leaders who spoke to Zawia3 say that the competition this time is not limited to choosing a new head, but represents a test for the future of the balances produced by the 2023 and 2025 elections.
They believe that El-Balshy’s second term differed from the first, as it saw growing controversy over a number of union files, including the delay in paying the training and technology allowance last July, even though delays in paying it during that period have been recurrent in recent years because it is tied to the start of the fiscal year, in addition to the controversy that accompanied the draft journalistic code of honour, particularly the provisions it contained relating to social gender under the name “gender”.
They argue that these files were used to stoke polarisation within the syndicate, with the aim of reshaping the general mood before the elections and boosting the chances of regaining the post of syndicate head through a candidate affiliated with the national (state-owned) press institutions or enjoying the support of state institutions, while other parties reject this view and consider that what is happening is no more than the normal electoral competition that precedes every union election.
The Next Elections: The Most Difficult and Competitive Union Battle
In this context, the journalist and prominent trade unionist Hisham Fouad expects the next elections to differ from the two previous ones, predicting that they will see a higher level of polarisation and competition over the post of syndicate head and the council seats.
Fouad tells Zawia3 that several indicators lead him to this assessment, including what he describes as the retreat of the atmosphere of openness that accompanied the launch of the National Dialogue, the continued imprisonment of a number of journalists and the referral of some of them to trial in publishing cases, in addition to what he considers a harsher approach to union activism within a number of professional syndicates.
In this context, he cites the arrest of four members of the Dentists Syndicate over union actions demanding the assignment of the 2023 graduating class, as well as the arrest of Mohamed Zahran, a union leader in the Teaching Professions Syndicate, over his demand for the implementation of a court ruling on holding union elections, considering that these incidents reflect an increasingly harsh approach to union work.
Fouad believes that these indicators may cast their shadow over the syndicate’s next elections, expecting state institutions to make a greater effort to regain the post of syndicate head and a majority on the council, unlike the current council, given the political and symbolic importance of the Journalists Syndicate as “the syndicate of opinion”. He links this assessment to the continuing controversy over the training and technology allowance, considering that the timing of any possible increase may carry electoral connotations.
Nevertheless, Fouad affirms that the outcome of the elections is still open, and that the success of any party will remain contingent on the performance of the candidates, on the ability of the union independence current to maintain its cohesion, and on the general mood of the general assembly. He says: “The result is not settled, but the next elections will be one of the most difficult and competitive union battles.”
Over the past few days, a number of names have been floated as possible candidates for the post of syndicate head, based on information about meetings, consultations and early electoral moves that took place in recent weeks, or on predictions circulating among some journalists, at a time when none of these figures has officially announced their candidacy so far.
Among the most prominent names in circulation is Diaa Rashwan, currently Minister of State for Media and a former head of the Journalists Syndicate, who held the post for two consecutive terms. For a segment of journalists, his tenure is associated with the crisis over the renovation of the syndicate building’s facade, which became known as “the shrouding of the syndicate“, as the facade remained covered for years during the renovation works, which led some journalists at the time to describe that period as “the years of the shroud”.
Alongside Rashwan, other names have emerged that sources told Zawia3 have begun preliminary consultations regarding the elections, including discussing the formation of electoral lists and sounding out the chances of obtaining support in union circles. Among them are Khaled Miri, the former deputy head of the syndicate who lost to El-Balshy in the 2023 elections; Abdel Mohsen Salama, the former syndicate head who lost to him in the 2025 elections; Abdel Raouf Khalifa, managing editor of Al-Ahram Foundation, member of its board of directors and a member of the current syndicate council; in addition to Refaat Rashad, a member of the board of directors of Al-Akhbar Foundation, who lost in the 2019 and 2021 elections when he ran against Rashwan.
The name of the syndicate’s current secretary-general, Gamal Abdel Rahim, whose council membership ends at the same time as the next elections, has also been mentioned, although he has not yet decided whether to run. According to other sources, the name of council member Mohamed Saad Abdel Hafeez has also been floated, even though his legal term still extends for another two years, and without any announcement from him about entering the race, while the list of names remains open so far, with no official announcement from any of them.
The Journalists’ Elections: Significance Beyond Choosing the Head or the Council
The journalist and former head of the Journalists Syndicate Yehia Qallash disagrees with the view that the next elections will see a high degree of polarisation that will decide their outcome, considering that successive experiences in a number of professional syndicates have proven the limited impact of polarisation attempts on voters’ choices, and that direct interventions may sometimes even backfire, citing the results of the recent elections of the Engineers Syndicate and the Judges Club.
Qallash tells Zawia3 that the Journalists Syndicate’s elections have a particularity not found in most professional syndicates: despite the limited number of its members compared with other syndicates, its results attract attention that goes beyond the boundaries of union work and are read as an indicator of opinion trends within one of the most important opinion groups in society. He points out that these elections have historically been followed by political and diplomatic circles.
Qallash believes that the struggle over the post of syndicate head is linked not so much to the person of the winner as to the symbolism the post represents, affirming that the head of the Journalists Syndicate “is not merely the head of a professional syndicate, but a symbol of the standing of the profession and its influence in the public sphere”. At the same time, he stresses that the relationship between the state and the syndicate has not historically been based on permanent confrontation, but on what he describes as “a policy of containment”, explaining that all syndicate heads dealt with the state according to institutional rules, regardless of their affiliations.
Qallash disputes the common classification of a “services head” versus an “independence head”, considering that practical experience does not support it. He cites syndicate heads classified within the independence current, such as Galal Aref and Kamel Zoheiry, affirming that they achieved prominent service and legislative accomplishments, including addressing the syndicate’s financial crisis, launching the emergency fund, establishing the Journalists’ City and defending the legal guarantees of press freedom.
He adds that sharp polarisation between the candidates of “the state” and of “independence” was not the dominant feature of the syndicate’s history, but emerged clearly from the 1981 elections onwards, in exceptional political circumstances that followed the Camp David Accords and the disputes between the syndicate and the late President Anwar Sadat. Since then, according to Qallash, a binary has taken root that does not necessarily reflect the reality of union work, since “the independence current” does not mean belonging to the opposition, but defending the independence of the syndicate’s decision-making and the rights of journalists, regardless of the political or partisan backgrounds of its members.
Is the State Preparing for the Battle of the “Bridge-Building Head”?
For his part, the journalist Karem Mahmoud, a professor at the Faculty of Mass Communication and former secretary-general of the Journalists Syndicate, says that the state’s pursuit of regaining the post of syndicate head is not new, but a pattern that has recurred in most professional syndicate elections to varying degrees, especially in syndicates with public influence, foremost among them the Journalists Syndicate.
He tells Zawia3 that the importance of the post of syndicate head is not tied to the number of the syndicate’s members, but to the nature of its role as “the syndicate of opinion”, which makes the results of its elections a matter of political interest that extends beyond the journalistic community; therefore, in every cycle, the state is keen to put forward a candidate close to it or who enjoys its trust, to guarantee a union leadership that does not enter into confrontation with it.
He explains that the coming battle has not officially begun yet, but moves are already under way behind the scenes, through meetings and consultations between potential candidates and early attempts to form electoral lists and coordinate positions, although they have remained out of public view.
Mahmoud dwells on one of the most prevalent concepts in the syndicate’s elections, the concept of the “bridge-building head” (naqib al-gusour), which emerged strongly from the 1980s onwards and rests on the idea that a syndicate head close to the circles of power is best able to bring services and financial benefits to journalists, drawing on his relations with state institutions.
He points out that this concept remained present in electoral discourse for decades until it became part of the electoral culture within the syndicate, but practical experience has proven that the relationship is not that simple, and that the head’s closeness to power does not necessarily mean greater gains for the general assembly.
He gives the example of the former syndicate head Galal Aref, who was elected as the candidate of the independence current but succeeded in achieving financial and service gains for the syndicate while preserving the independence of its decision-making, which was largely repeated with El-Balshy in his first term, which saw cooperation with state institutions on a number of files without giving up the syndicate’s independence.
By contrast, he points out that some syndicate heads known for their closeness to power did not achieve the leap in services they had promised; indeed, the tenure of some of them was bleak, without services or real union work, which raises questions about the validity of linking the head’s closeness to the government with his ability to improve journalists’ conditions.
Mahmoud affirms that the syndicate’s crisis is no longer tied to the person of the head alone, but has become a structural crisis affecting the future of the profession, amid the economic challenges facing press institutions, the deterioration of journalists’ living conditions and the lack of job opportunities, files which, in his opinion, will not be resolved merely by electing a head who is close to power or distant from it, but require a broader vision concerning the future of journalism and the state’s policies towards the media.
Mahmoud concludes by stressing that the criterion for success in the syndicate’s elections should not be the candidate’s closeness to or distance from the circles of rule, but his ability to defend the syndicate’s independence and serve the interests of its members, and to preserve space for dialogue with state institutions without this turning into subordination or confrontation.
The next elections cannot be separated from a professional reality in crisis, whose features were revealed by the results of the first survey the syndicate has conducted among its members in twenty years, in which 1,568 journalists took part, as part of the preparations for its sixth conference in December 2024.
The results showed that 72% of journalists receive wages below the minimum wage and that 79% are dissatisfied with their income level, while 48.6% rely on the training and technology allowance as a main source of living, and only 17.2% use it for its designated purpose. In addition, 65.5% resort to extra work to compensate for low wages, 27.4% have been subjected to arbitrary dismissal, and about 70% of those dismissed affirmed that their problems had not been resolved.
The indicators did not stop at living conditions, but extended to what besets the profession in general: 57.3% believed that journalism no longer performs its role in society, 88.4% expressed dissatisfaction with the mechanisms for selecting press leaders, and 67.5% expected the role of journalism to decline in the future in the face of the growing influence of social media platforms.
These indicators reveal that the crises of male and female journalists are deep-rooted, having accumulated over years and worsened during the last decade, amid economic challenges, the crises of the press industry and the deterioration of the conditions of media institutions. This period coincided with a succession of syndicate heads, among them Abdel Mohsen Salama (2017–2019) and then Diaa Rashwan for two consecutive terms (2019–2023), both figures known for their affiliation with the national press institutions and their closeness to decision-making circles. Nevertheless, most of journalists’ problems, from wages to job stability, social welfare and the future of the profession, persisted and even grew more complicated from 2016, the year the Journalists Syndicate was stormed, onwards. This raises questions about the ability of any syndicate head, whatever his relationship with state institutions, to address a crisis that has gone beyond the boundaries of union work and become linked to the structure of the press industry and the policies regulating it.
Regaining the Post of Syndicate Head and Indirect Attempts at Influence
The journalist and trade unionist Viola Fahmy believes that attempts to regain the post of syndicate head will be present in the next elections, but indirectly. She tells Zawia3: “The state, or some of its agencies, if the expression is correct, will try to regain the seat, but not by interfering in the ballot box, because the syndicate’s elections still largely preserve the will of the general assembly, but rather by influencing the will of the voters.”
She explains that this influence is exerted, in her assessment, through the continued stalling of union files that affect journalists’ daily lives, such as the situation of temporary workers in the national press institutions, the delay in addressing the wages file, the increase in the training and technology allowance, and continued arbitrary dismissals in some institutions, considering that obstructing these files “pushes a segment of journalists to believe that a head closer to the government is better able to end these crises and achieve gains”.
Fahmy points out that this perception ignores the fact that the syndicate head alone does not have the power to settle those files, and says: “People sometimes imagine that the syndicate head has a magic wand, whereas we are facing chronic problems that have accumulated for years, and there are files that various bodies want to remain unresolved, and so they are not resolved.” She affirms that El-Balshy “tried to manage these files with great balance, but in the end he is not the decision-maker”.
On the readiness of the independence current for the next elections amid this polarisation, Fahmy cites the experience of El-Balshy himself, who lost three consecutive elections for council membership before winning the post in 2023, and says: “The independence current has not run dry, and it continues to produce new leaders all the time, but the decisive factor in the syndicate’s elections remains the general climate within the general assembly, not the names alone.”
Fahmy links the importance of the struggle over the post to the special standing of the Journalists Syndicate as “the syndicate of opinion”, saying that the syndicate “is not merely a professional syndicate, but is linked to press freedom and the circulation of information, which are among the most important indicators of freedoms in any country”, adding that journalists “are not merely practitioners of a profession, but play a role in shaping public awareness, alongside educational and religious institutions”.
Between attempts to regain the seat through candidates seen as closest to the circles of power and a segment of journalists’ insistence on the syndicate’s independence, the general assembly will have the final word. However, the latest survey, and the testimonies of the experts and trade unionists who spoke to Zawia3, reveal that the real crisis goes beyond the names of the candidates, as it is linked to structural crises that have accumulated over years, from low wages and the lack of job stability to the restrictions imposed on journalistic work and the deterioration of the professional environment. Therefore, the identity of the next syndicate head remains important, but it alone will not be enough unless it is coupled with a real will to address the roots of the crisis and restore the professional role of both the syndicate and journalism.
