CAIRO — Following a 12-year hiatus, labor union elections kicked off May 23 amid accusations that the Egyptian government is excluding independent labor organizations’ leaders from the electoral race in a bid to have the upper hand on labor unions, which caused a headache for the regime in the wake of the January 25 Revolution.

The last labor elections were held under former President Hosni Mubarak in 2006, before being suspended due to the political unrest that followed the revolutions on Jan. 25, 2011, and on June 30, 2013.

Minister of Manpower and Immigration Mohamed Saffan said during a news conference May 24 that workers are taking part in historic elections that allow them to freely choose their representatives for the first time in 12 years. “Our goal is to produce a trade union organization that expresses workers with the utmost transparency,” he added.

The elections are held under judicial supervision, and they are divided into three phases: the enterprise union committees elections (one committee per governorate or city to represent enterprises, factories and companies) on May 23-24 and May 31; the trade union councils elections (one council for every profession or industry) on June 7; and the general trade union elections (one union at the national level) on June 13.