The National Election Authority (NEA), the body in charge of supervising Egypt’s elections, announced the results of the first round of the second stage of the parliamentary elections across 13 governorates, including Cairo, on Tuesday.
The National Unified List for Egypt, the only party list coalition running in the elections, won 142 seats unopposed after getting more than 10 per cent of the vote, double the minimum number required by the election law, Hazem Badawi, head of the NEA, declared in a press conference.
Of the 283 seats up for grabs among 1,316 individual candidates in this round, Badawi said 40 candidates were able to win seats and that there would be a run-off in 55 districts out of a total of 73.
Unlike the first stage of the parliamentary polls, which was marred by irregularities in 14 governorates, the second stage was conducted in a climate of transparency, strict discipline, and without gross violations, Badawi said.
Badawi said that there would be a “partial invalidation of the results of the elections in the district of Belqas in Daqahliya governorate and the district of Toukh in Qalioubiya governorate.”
“Some ballot papers will be excluded in these two districts due to the presence of minor violations that were not serious enough to affect the entire vote,” Badawi said.
However, the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC), which is authorised by the constitution to decide on appeals filed against election results, took everyone by surprise on Sunday when it ordered that the results of the polls in 30 individual districts in the first stage of the parliamentary elections be annulled.
The SAC order brought the number of individual districts in which the results of the elections were invalidated to 49 out of a total of 70, or 64 per cent. The SAC also decided to refer 69 appeals to the Court of Cassation.
The appeals, which come after the declaration of victory of some candidates, should be referred to the Court of Cassation in line with Article 107 of the constitution, according to professor of constitutional law Salah Fawzi.
“This article gives the Cassation Court the right to give a final say on them within two months, a procedure which will place the membership of some deputies on shaky ground,” Fawzi said.
Negad Al-Borai, a human-rights lawyer, explained that the courts order run-offs in districts where no candidate has been officially declared the winner. In districts where a winner has been declared, any appeals should be sent to the Court of Cassation because they challenge whether the election as a whole or the newly elected MP’s election is legally valid.
“This will create a problem for the coming parliament, as the legality of the membership of some of its deputies will be at stake,” Al-Borai said.
Badawi noted that the NEA is committed to implementing the SAC’s annulment of the elections in 30 districts. “The SAC orders are constitutionally binding and can’t be appealed, so we must respect them,” he said.
A re-election in these 30 districts will be held on 8-9 December for Egyptians abroad and 10-11 for Egyptians at home.
Al-Ahram political analyst Amr Al-Shobaki said the SAC’s decision to annul the results of the elections in 64 per cent of individual districts in the first round of the polls in 14 governorates is unprecedented in the history of Egyptian parliamentary polls and strips the election of much of its legitimacy.
“The annulment is a corrective measure to treat the symptoms of the disease, but it will not treat its cause because the question that must be asked is how we reached this high level of violations and irregularities,” Al-Shobaki said.
He believes that in addition to the public’s reluctance to participate in the voting process, the electoral law opened the door to irregularities and violations.
“According to the law, 55 per cent of the members of the House of Representatives are ‘appointed’ through uncontested party lists,” Al-Shobaki said, adding that this also opened the door to bribes and payments disguised as “donations” to political parties.
Another five per cent of MPs are appointed by the president, according to the constitution.
“When you hold an election lacking competition and with a foregone conclusion, this automatically means that large numbers of people will refrain from participating,” Al-Shobaki said.
Even worse, the current districts are divided disastrously, as they include sprawling areas and neighbourhoods that have no relation to each other, he said. This made it easy for political money and for those who exploit the neediness of some voters to carry out shameful vote-buying practices in different constituencies.
“The judicial rulings invalidating the results in 64 per cent of the first-round districts is a good reason to annul the elections as a whole,” Cairo University political science professor Mustafa Kamel Al-Sayed said, adding that “completing the elections despite all these violations will only result in a parliament whose legitimacy is questionable.”
He described the situation as an “electoral earthquake” reflecting Egypt’s political impasse.
The first round of Egypt’s parliamentary elections began on 10 November. There were several reports of gross violations including vote-buying, errors in vote-tallying, and other fundamental flaws that required the NEA to annul the elections in 19 districts, equivalent to 26 per cent of the total in the first round.
The SCA, constitutionally authorised to decide on appeals filed against election results, also ordered that the elections in another 30 districts be annulled, bringing the total to 49 or 64 per cent of the total in the first round.
Human rights lawyer Tarek Al-Awadi appealed to President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi to intervene to hold those responsible for electoral irregularities accountable.
Writing on X platform on Sunday, Al-Awadi said that “I call on the president to form an independent national body with full authority to uncover what happened, clearly define responsibilities, and hold accountable whoever is involved, whether through participation or negligence, regardless of their position, name, or title.”
On 26 November, President Al-Sisi said that some of his observations on the voting process in the House of Representatives elections constituted a veto because he was not satisfied with the process and objected to many of its practices.
Former chair of the Wafd Party Mahmoud Abaza said that annulling the elections entirely would be unconstitutional.
“I admit that annulling the elections in 64 per cent of the districts in the first round is an earthquake, but this is not enough to justify annulling the elections entirely,” Abaza said.
Badawi said the fact that the NEA and the SCA had decided to annul the election results in 49 districts was just a “corrective measure” for wrongful practices committed by some irresponsible persons.
“Judicial oversight, including by the NEA and SAC, is a guarantee protecting the rights of voters and candidates alike,” he said.
Badawi also addressed a message to voters.
“What the electoral process is witnessing is a correction of wrongful practices by some who wanted to hijack the will of the voters,” he said.
He noted that annulling the results and holding new elections in 49 individual districts was happening for the first time on such a large scale and was an indicator of the integrity of the polls and the extent to which state institutions are keen to preserve the will of the voters.
“Please, citizens, use your vote, knowing that it can’t be bought or sold. Give it to those who deserve it, and we are with you in vowing that no candidate will join the new parliament except by your own free will,” Badawi concluded.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 December, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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