The results of the first stage of the Senate elections showed that run-offs will be held for five individual seats in the governorates of Gharbiya, Beni Sweif, New Valley, Luxor, and Ismailia on 25-26 August for Egyptians abroad and on 27-28 August for voters at home.
The run-offs come after a total of 195 of the Senate seats were settled in the first round of voting held on 4-5 August.
The National Unified List (NUL), the only closed party list in the race, won all 100 party list seats uncontested and after securing the five per cent threshold in all four constituencies.
As many as 44 winners of the 100-candidate NUL are affiliated with Mostaqbal Watan (Future of the Homeland) Party, along with 19 for Homat Al-Watan (Guardians of the Homeland), 12 for the National Front, five for the People’s Republican Party, five for the Egyptian Socialist Democratic Party, four for the Reform and Development Party, four for the Adl (Justice) Party, two for the Tagammu Party, two for Wafd, one for the Will of the Generation, one for the Freedom Party, and one for the Congress Party.
The remaining 95 were filled as individual seats. The results show that Mostaqbal Watan won 58 seats, Homat Al-Watan secured 23, the National Front got nine, and the People’s Republican Party clinched five seats.
The opposition parties failed to win a single individual seat in the first round. Only one candidate from the opposition Awareness Party, Fayez Badawi, will contest the run-off on 27-28 August in Beni Sweif.
Individual independents also received no seats in the first round of the elections. Only two independents, Mohamed Yassin and Mohamed Ghannam, will compete in the run-offs in Luxor and Ismailia.
Women candidates also failed to win a single individual seat, though 50 (26 independents and 24 affiliated with political parties) contested the polls. Eighteen women, however, will join the Senate as they were elected under the NUL. Another 12 will be appointed, so the total number will stand at 30, or 10 per cent of the total, as required by the constitution.
Constitutional law professor Abdallah Al-Moghazi was unhappy that the Senate elections lacked competition and that the results had been a “foregone conclusion”.
“Not only was this clear in the failure of opposition and independent MPs to win a single seat in the first round, but also in the low turnout of only 17.1 per cent,” Al-Moghazi said, attributing the lack of interest to the government’s unwillingness to implement the reforms recommended by the National Dialogue, changing the election system, and giving legislative and supervisory powers to the Senate.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 21 August, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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