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Mahmoud
Abu El-Leil , Egypt's justice minister and head of the election
commission. (Reuters)
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CAIRO,
November 15, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Amid
complaints of widespread irregularities and legal rulings annulling
some results, Egyptians started voting Tuesday, November 15, in
runoffs for the first phase of parliamentary elections in which the
Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is expected to continue its push against
President Hosni Mubarak's ruling party.
Electoral
commission spokesman Faruq Awad confirmed that polling stations opened
Tuesday for runoffs over the 133 out of 164 seats that were not
decided last week, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
first round saw the victories of 26 National Democratic Party (NDP)
candidates, four Muslim Brothers and one independent.
According
to official results, a quarter of the 11-million electorate voted on
November 9 during a polling process which opposition parties and
non-governmental organizations said was marred by widespread
irregularities.
266
candidates are fighting for the 133 seats up for grabs Tuesday. Of
these 97 are NDP candidates, 120 independents and 42 Muslim
Brotherhood candidates, out of a total of 51 candidates for the group
in the first round, making the group's performance unexpectedly
stunning.
The
opposition coalition including the Kefaya (Enough) movement, the
Marxist Tagammu, the Nasserists and the liberal Wafd failed to secure
a seat in the first round, with only 7 candidates trying their luck
again Tuesday.
Egypt's
parliamentary polls are spread out over three successive phases. The
first round of the first stage was held November 9 in eight
governorates, including Cairo.
The
ruling party controls 404 out of parliament's 454 seats, but the
Muslim Brothers have conducted an aggressive campaign which they hope
will help them at least treble their current seat tally of 15, making
them the main opposition block in the coming parliament, according to
observers.
According
to the Egyptian press, NDP members who ran as independents were
brought back into the fold before the run-offs in constituencies where
the ruling party's official candidates made poor first round showings.
Results
Annulled
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Security
forces detain MB supporters, who were protesting vote rigging in
the first round. (Reuters)
|
Further
complicating matters, the results announced in three of the 82
constituencies involved in the first round were annulled Sunday and
will therefore lead to re-runs.
Egypt's
administrative judicial court Sunday annulled parliamentary polls
convened in three electoral districts in the greater Cairo area and
ordered new polls in these areas.
The
court also canceled run-off votes scheduled for Tuesday in Waeli,
Manshiyet Al-Qanatir, Omrania and Bulaq Daqrur and ruled that all the
candidates who participated in these districts compete again.
It
argued that many of the candidates had ignored an order by the court
to change their status and insisted on running as laborers or farmers,
although they did not qualify.
The
Egyptian constitution reserves 50 percent of the seats in parliament
for laborers or farmers.
According
to Al-Jazeera Tuesday, however, a spokesman for the electoral
commission ruled out implementing the court ruling, insisting results
were final.
Independent
monitors, opposition candidates and judges said that besides the
corruption which characterizes parliamentary campaigns, irregularities
included falsified voter registries and ballot-stuffing during the
counting process.
Scores
of NGOs who were allowed to monitor the polling process acknowledged
widespread fraud but praised the state security forces for adopting a
low profile and reported no major violence.
Women
Amal
Osman, one of only six women out of the 444 candidates fielded by the
NDP, was the only woman to secure her seat in the first round.
Makaram
Al-Deiri, the only female candidate running for the Muslim
Brotherhood, is involved in a close run-off in Cairo's Nasr City
constituency.
Mona
Makram Ebeid, the only Coptic woman running in the elections, charged
that she had lost in the first round due to cheating by her NDP rival.
"I
saw illiterate voters being paid in the street," she told AFP.
"The practices will end up drawing a lot of sympathy towards the
Muslim Brothers."
Salama
Ahmed Salama, an editorialist for the top-selling state-owned Al-Ahram
daily, lashed out at both NDP tactics and the Muslim Brotherhood's
slogan "Islam is the solution".
"The
authorities took hardly any action to prevent voters from being swayed
by cash or faith exploited by candidates who were in a race for
parliamentary seats and the legal immunity it guarantees," he
said.
