Islamists win 70% of Egypt People's Assembly party list seats

Sherif Tarek , Saturday 21 Jan 2012

The trend of Islamist dominance in the voting for independent candidates continues in the party lists, while the Wafd Party wins the third highest number of seats

Elections
File photo: An Egyptian man casts his vote in the parliamentary elections at a polling station in the Shubra neighborhood of Cairo (Photo: AP)

The Supreme Electoral Commission announced Saturday the overall make-up of the party list seats in Egypt's upcoming People's Assembly.

As widely expected, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won the lion’s share with just over 38 per cent of the seats.

The Salafist Nour Party also continued the trend from the independent candidate voting to come second and secure 29 per cent of the list seats.

The moderate Islamist Al-Wasat party secured 3 per cent of the list seats.

As a whole, the Islamist forces account for 70 per cent of the Assembly.

The Wafd Party were the most successful of the non-Islamist forces, winning 36 seats, or around 11 per cent. The Egyptian Bloc coalition ended up with 33 seats, close to 10 per cent.

Trailing further behind, the Revolution Continues electoral coalition secured 2 per cent of the list seats.

The Free Egyptians, the leading party of the Egyptian Bloc, was unexpectedly among the parties that failed to achieve the minimum proportion of seats – 0.5 per cent – in order to be conferred with independent representation in Parliament. Al-Ghad Party and the Democratic Front did also not meet the threshold.

Meanwhile, the offshoots of the now-dismantled and once ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) secured, in total, 4 per cent of the list seats.

Results for the individual seats were announced at the end of each of the three voting stages, which began on 28 November.

Party list seats make up 332 of the Lower House's 498 elected seats. Ten further representatives are appointed by the president, in this case the military council.

The distribution of list seats in numbers

The Freedom and Justice Party: 127

Nour Party: 96

Wafd Party: 36

Egyptian Bloc: 33

Al-Wasat Al-Gadid: 10

The Reformation and Development Party (Hizb al-Islah We Aa-Tanmia): 8

The Revolution Continues: 7

The Democratic Piece Party: 1

The Egyptian Arab Association Party: 1

-NDP offshoots:

Freedom Party (Hizb al-Horreya): 4

National Party of Egypt (Hizb Masr al-Qawmi): 4

Egyptian Citizen Party (Hizb al-Mowaten al-Masri): 3

Union Party (Hizb al-Ittihad): 2

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