CAIRO,
November 9, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – In what
could be Egypt's hottest parliamentary election, polling kicked off
Wednesday, November 9, in the first phase of an almost month-long
process, amid high hopes by opposition powers to pose a real challenge
to the dominant National Democratic Party (NDP).
The
polling process kicked off at 8:00 am (0500 GMT) in eight of Egypt's
26 governorates, including Cairo.
This
first round of elections involves a total of 1,635 candidates vying
for 164 of the People's Assembly's 444 seats that are up for grabs.
Giza,
Menoufiya, Beni Sueif, Menya, Assiut, New Valley and Mersa Matrouh are
the seven other governorates that witness voting Wednesday.
Results
are expected Thursday and any run-offs are due to be contested on
November 15, before the second phase of polling kicks off five days
later.
Run-offs
take place if no one of candidates won 50% plus one at least of valid
votes. In the second round the two candidates with highest number of
votes go it again against one another after excluding the rest of
candidates.
As
usual, the ruling NDP fielded 444 candidates with two thirds
representing the party's old guard including the People's Assembly
speaker Ahmed Fathy Sorour, the party's Deputy Secretary General Kamal
Al-Shazli as well as current ministers Youssef Boutros Ghali, Sayed
Meshaal, Mohamed Ibrahim Suleiman and Mahmoud Abu Zeid.
Hopes
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Nour's poster.
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Ahead
of the polling, civil monitors secured a goal by a court ruling
allowing them to monitor the election process after getting a permit
from the higher electoral committee to enter the stations.
The
monitors expressed hope that their increased presence in and around
polling stations will allow more transparent elections than in
previous years but have continued to raise doubts over the counting
process.
"One
has to admit that the conditions in which the campaign took place were
much better than those that prevailed in previous elections,"
Mustafa Kamel Al-Sayyed, a political analyst from the Al-Ahram
Research Center, has told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
banned but largely tolerated Muslim Brotherhood is already the largest
opposition force in parliament with the highest percentage of presence
at the previous parliament of 15 seats.
With
"Islam is the solution" motto, the most organized opposition
group hopes to increase its number if seats to 50 in the light of the
unprecedented level of freedom it was granted during the campaigning.
The
Muslim Brotherhood has fielded 150 candidates.
The
other main opposition bloc which is made up of several movements --
including the Kefaya group, Al-Wafd, Tagammu and the Nasserite parties
-- has been suffering internal divisions.
Kefaya
(Enough) movement, which analysts believe to be one of the most active
opposition's new entities backed the candidates of the opposition in
the current elections.
Al-Ghad
party leader Ayman Nour, a former presidential hopeful who runs in
Cairo's Bab El-Shaariya constituency, faces tough challenges from the
NDP's candidate.
The
former Al-Wafd party member, who came very distance second to Mubarak
in the presidential race, is going through a number of legal
challenges and his opposition Ghad party has been undermined by
dissent.
On
September 7, the most populous Arab country witnessed its first
contested presidential elections in which the 78-year old incumbent
Hosni Mubarak came out victorious with 88% of the votes after what
opposition parties called a cosmetic amendment of the constitution.
The
stakes are high for opposition groups who need at least 23 seats to
have the right to field a candidate against President Hosni Mubarak's
ruling National Democratic Party in the next presidential election.
