(L) Ali Abdel Aal, newly-elected speaker of the House of Representatives, (R) Mahmoud El-Sharif, newly-elected deputy speaker (Photo: Al-Ahram)
Egypt's new House of Representatives elected MP Mahmoud El-Sharif as one of its two deputies in the late hours of Sunday, with run-offs for the position of a second deputy set to take place on Monday.
The election results led to run-offs for the second deputy speaker between the Wafd Party candidate MP Soliman Wahdan and MP Alaa Abdel-Moneim.
El-Sharif is a member of the Support Egypt parliamentary bloc that strongly backs the policies of the President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.
The number of MPs who voted for the deputy positions was 547.
El-Sharif won 345 votes, while Abdel-Moneim received 225 votes. Wahdan came in third place with 177 votes.
Other candidates for the post included Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies vice-president Emad Gad (41 votes); Middle East forum for strategic studies head Samir Ghattas (32 votes); former undersecretary of the General Intelligence Service Hatem Bashat (100 votes); and national security consultant for political Medhat El-Sharif (47 votes).
The parliament's speaker Ali Abdel-Al decided that the run-off round would take place during the second procedural session on Monday.
Abdel-Al, a constitutional law professor, was elected as the new parliament's speaker on Sunday in a procedural session that stretched for ten hours.
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