Islamists on the March in Second Day of Egypt's Electoral Runoffs

Amidst voter turnout lower than first shot at ballots last week, Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood compete for many of the same fifty-two remaining single-seats leaving liberals marginalised.

Egypt’s polling stations have opened their doors for the second day of the electoral runoffs early Tuesday.
The runoffs will take place in twenty-seven constituencies across the nine governorates that voted in the first stage of the three-phase elections, which began on 28 November.

The governorates include Cairo, Alexandria, Assiut, Damietta, Kafr El-Sheikh, Port Said, Fayoum, the Red Sea and Luxor where 104 candidates will compete for the remaining fifty-two singles-seats.

In the first round of elections, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), took forty percent of the vote outright.

Salafists ranked number two and a conglomeration of liberal parties, the Egyptian Bloc, third.

In the runoff for the remaining seats, liberals are throwing their weight in a last-ditch effort to gain a few seats; however the majority of the remaining seats will most likely go to Islamists.

The Muslim Brotherhood,s FJP is running for forty-eight out of the fifty-two runoff singles-seats, with Salafists in tight competition with the FJP for many of those same seats.

Voter turnout in the runoffs has been much lower than in the first trip to the ballots in this phase of the parliamentary elections last week.

Monday evening, the Supreme Electoral Committee (SEC) annulled the runoff election in El Sahel district in Cairo due to counting irregularities. The new vote in the district is rescheduled for 10 and 11 January.

[Developed in partnership with Ahram Online.]