With only four of the fofty-six candidates securing seats from the get go,the remaining candidates battle it out at the polls today, hoping to grab a seat in Egypt`s first post-Mubarak parliament.
The run-off for the first round of Egypt’s parliamentary elections kicked off at 8am Monday.
The election run-off will take place in twenty-seven constituencies across nine governorates including 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 seats. Among them are forty-eight candidates from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP); thrity-six from the Salafist Al-Nour Party; fourteen from the Egyptian Bloc, a coalition of liberal parties; one from the liberal Al-Wafd Party and one from NDP offshoot the National Party of Egypt, which was founded by the late Talaat Al-Sadat and four independents.
The first phase of elections for the People’s Assembly (Parliament’s lower house) began on 28 November in which candidates contested fifty-six seats across the twenty-seven governorates. Only four candidates managed to secure seats: Akram El-Shaer of the FJP won the individual seat in Port Said; Ramadan Omar also of the FJP took the workers seat in Helwan; liberal activist Amr Hamzawy, who ran as an independent, won the professional seat in Heliopolis; and Mustafa Bakry, who also ran as an independent, won Helwan’s professional seat.
Click here to learn more about the election rules and dates.
[Developed in patnership with Ahram Online.]