Brotherhood and Salafis ontinue to top the polls

Egyptian voters started participating in the run-off of the second round of the parliamentary elections, where 118 candidates competed over 59 seats. Despite the statement of the head of the Supreme Elections Commission, Abdel Moaz Ibrahim, confirming that all necessary actions will be taken to avoid previous drawbacks, the run-off of the second round witnessed a lower turnout compared to run-off of the first round. Competition is split between 47 candidates from Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, trailed by Salafist Nour party with 36 candidates, 10 Independent candidates, 3 from the Egyptian Bloc, one from Wafd party, and 26 from different other parties. Around 12 million voters participated in the second round of the elections, resulting in 67% of participation, which is higher than in the first round. Judge Abdel Moaz Ibrahim, head of Supreme Elections Commission, stressed that the commission would not tolerate any violation to the ban of advertising during the electoral silence of 48 hours before the elections date, with accordance to the regulations of electoral campaigns, which prohibits the use of any advertising or religious slogans to campaign for candidates during the last two days before the elections. Judge Ibrahim said that the commission took all necessary action to avoid the drawbacks that have emerged in the first run of the second round, demanding administrative and governmental departments to provide cars for the judges to transfer them to their electoral centers and polling stations, where they are to supervise the run-off. Regarding the security, Ibrahim said that the security and military forces are to secure polling stations and centers in all electoral districts. In addition, security staff was alerted not to mistreat judges who are in charge, but to cooperate with them in securing the ballots. The number of judges supervising the elections in this round reached 10000, all of which received polls from the Supreme Elections Commission through security departments of each governorate, after making sure that all are stamped with the commission’s seal. They have also received the lists of voters and candidates in the run-off. MB and Salafis topping the lists The run-off witnessed the first competition between Islamists and members of the dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP) over 9 seats, of which 2 compete against Nour party, and 7 and 7 against FJP. Despite the obvious dominance of the Islamists in first run, the run-off is still expected to be intense, following the attempt of Wafd party to get former NDP members to run with Wafd’s name. Such competition between NDP and FJP is most prominent in Sharqia governorate, where both parties compete over 4 parliamentary seats. In Giza, the run-off in the first electoral district takes place between FJP’s Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed Hussein and el-Nour’s Mohamed Eid Abdel Aziz Abu Karim, over professional individual seats, whereas the run-off over the workers seat in the same district is between Khattab Sayed Mohamed Murad (FJP) and Hamdi Mohamed Eweis Haroun (Nour party). In the fourth district, the run-off over the workers seat takes place between Abdel Salam Zaki Bashandi (FJP) and Ismail Ibrahim Mohamed (Nour party). While in Beni Sueif, Amer Basel, Nour candidate, and Gaber Mansour from FJP contest over the professional individual seat. In the second electoral district, Abdel Hakim Masaoud from Nour and Mohamed Shaker Maihoub from FJP contest over the workers individual seat. In the third electoral district, Mohamed Rabie Abdel Hadi(Nour) and Nihad AlQasim Sayed (FJP) contest over the professional individual seat. The Suez governorate had the highest turnout in the first run of the second round of voting.   MP candidate Abbas Abdel Aziz from FJP contests against Mohamed Adel el-Sayed from Nour party over the professional individual parliamentary seat. Finally, in Sohag, the run-off took place over the professional individual seat, between Walid Abdel Awal, Nour candidate, and Mostafa Abdel Hamid from FJP.