Mapping election runoffs: Parties versus independents

Ahram Online , Thursday 22 Oct 2015

Parliament
A worker cleans the table of the Egyptian parliament in Cairo January 22, 2012. (Photo: Reuters)

Runoffs in the first round of Egypt's parliamentary elections will take place next week, with 224 candidates representing 13 different parties  and 212 independent candidates competing to win a total of 218 parliamentary seats, according to Ahram Online estimates. 

Elections kicked off last week with voters in 14 of Egypt's 27 governorates heading to the polls to cast votes for party-list candidates and for candidates running as individuals.

All 60 list seats were filled.

In the individual seats, four candidates won outright, having secured more than 50 percent of the vote. The remaining 218 seats in 103 individual seat constituencies will be contested via runoff as no single candidate secured 50 percent of the required votes.

In the runoffs, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, 224 of the individual candidates are party members or have received party endorsements, while 212 are running as indpendents.

The Free Egyptians Party, founded by business tycoon Naguib Sawiris after the 25 January ‎Revolution, has the highest number of candidates represented in the coming vote with 65 members out of 112 making it to ‎the runoffs, followed by the newly established party the Future of the Homeland with 48 ‎candidates. ‎

The Wafd Party, Egypt’s oldest liberal party, has 35 candidates in the runoffs according to its head El-Sayed El-Badawy, while the Salafist Nour Party, which has been very critical of the ‎electoral process in the past few days, has 25 candidates in the runoffs. ‎

A number of offshoots of  former ruling National Democratic Party also managed to ‎make it to the second round.

The Republican People’s party has 14 candidates, Masr Baladi ‎has six candidates, Modern Egypt has five, and the Conservatives have three. ‎

The results of both the Conference Party, founded by former foreign secretary Amr Moussa, and the ‎National Movement of the former prime minister and presidential candidate Ahmed ‎Shafiq came as a surprise to their members, with seven candidates of the former and only six ‎candidates of the latter making it to the runoffs.‎

Egypt’s Social Democratic Party, which was founded after the 25 January Revolution, managed ‎to get only five of its members to the runoffs.

The party, which had 16 members in the 2011 ‎parliament, has been facing an internal crisis over the past two years with many of its popular ‎figures resigning and joining other parties or deciding not to run in the 2015 elections.‎

Leftist parties in general failed to make it to the runoffs; neither Tagamou Party, Socialist ‎Alliance or the Nasserist Karama Party managed to get any candidates into the runoffs. ‎

The four candidates who won seats in the first stage include Abdel-Rehim Ali, an ‎independent candidate and a  TV presenter who won in a Giza ‎constituency. The other winning candidates are Mohamed Dessouky and Mohamed El-‎Basha in two Upper Egypt constituencies, while Gamal Fares won in a constituency based in ‎the New Valley governorate.‎

The “For the Love of Egypt” list won 60 list seats in the first stage, after contesting 45 seats in ‎Giza and Upper Egypt and another 15 seats in West Delta. The list will be contesting ‎another 60 seats in the second stage; 45 seats in Cairo, South and Middle Delta and 15 seats ‎in East Delta.‎

The pro-Sisi list is led by Major-General Sameh Seif El-Yazal, a former military intelligence officer, and includes the Free Egyptians Party and the Wafd Party, both of which won five seats secured by the list in the first round.

 

Graph
Infoghraphic: Ahram Online

Graph
Infoghraphic: Ahram Online

 

 

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